


Roadrunner

by Eveilae



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: American AU, M/M, POC Remus, Period Typical Attitudes, magical au, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-03-02 02:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13308633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eveilae/pseuds/Eveilae
Summary: The young Marauders find themselves fighting a succession of secret wars on Boston's one-way streets.  (An AU where Hogwarts is in Boston, which starts in the 1970s and will follow the Marauders through to the 1990s)





	1. All Tomorrow's Parties

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfic in many, many years and my first wolfstar. Criticism is welcome and edits are likely.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where introductions are made.

James and Sirius would share their well-earned title as Hogwarts’ _Most Likely to Burn Something Down_ in 1977, but in 1973 they were still meekly following Remus’ lead as they plodded through Boston’s greybrown snow to see a local band play. Despite appearances, this pattern would echo throughout their teenage years and young adulthood as Remus introduced Sirius to bars like Playland, where he first felt the sharp rush of blood to heart and groin when a man touches his ass in public.  
  
None of the Marauders besides Sirius were from Boston, but both Remus and Peter (hailing from Jersey and Brooklyn, respectively) understood the rhythms and smells of a city. Remus and Peter would sometimes give their best friends and the prefects the slip to leave Cambridge behind, share cigarettes and continue their endless and fruitless search for a good slice of pizza. They laughed their way through many afternoons of cold ears and runny noses. Being left behind never bothered James, who was lactose intolerant and preferred marijuana, but often when Remus and Peter returned they would find Sirius sulking on his bed. After Remus procured a fake ID he would attempt to head off the tantrum by slipping him a bottle of Narragansett and letting Sirius scoff at his attempts to pronounce it.  
  
Sirius was a Brahmin to his core—the Boston Blacks could draw a thick black line with their expensive steel-tipped quills through Plymouth Rock, across the briney Atlantic and right into expansive estates in England— but the heir to the most ancient and noble house could barely find Boylston Street on a map. From their earliest days in Boston, the Blacks had taken care to build themselves a small empire from which to gaze down upon the rest of the world. The Blacks had not been overcome with revolutionary fervor and as such had joined several other pureblood families in taking a backseat to the largely Muggle independence movement. This sentiment did not change over time; they disdainfully ignored an invitation to the opening of a wizarding floor of the Old State House highlighting the bravery and achievements of the First Wizarding Patriots. Sirius made a point of accompanying the Potters to see the exhibition when it was renovated and the thrill he felt at knowing that the news would get back to his mother was only somewhat spoiled by Peter’s muttering comments that he felt the whole thing was kind of rotten seeing as how many of these same heroes had had slaves. Fleamont Potter, in the way of aging hippies that had lost their taste for blood, pointed out vaguely that the slaves had probably benefited from independence as well. None of the teenaged boys knew how to respond to a respected adult’s clear rebuff, but Peter shot Remus a glance, hoping that he was impressed anyway. Remus continued to read a placard underneath a moving drawing of two wizards on brooms holding muskets. He didn’t want to engage.  
  
Remus' werewolf senses distorted the world, making the Old State House smell yeasty and fecund. A lot of Boston smelled this way to Remus, like an old wine opened at the wrong time or bad panettone. It had nothing to do with history as far as Remus could ever tell; Newark had its own share of old haunts, but the air there was sweet with the miasma of smog and meats. Boston was brewing or stewing, old juices taking new and dangerous shapes. The smell clung to his thick hair and would occasionally make a lump rise high in his throat, anxiety threading delicately across the tightened muscles of his back and shoulders. By 1977 Remus had learned to drown out these feelings, but it took time to condition himself.  
  
In 1973, after almost three years at Hogwarts, he was still struggling to transition from the near constant sound of Hector Lavoe and Ruben Blades at his Seventh Ave apartment in Newark to the stiff silence of Hogwarts, broken only by the sound of furiously moving quills against parchment. While he’d made brief attempts to explain to his friends how the old stone walls seemed to be closing in on him, it was quickly apparent that Hogwarts represented something else to them. To Sirius it was freedom, to James a refreshing routine after years of poetry readings, jazz clubs and the occasional cannabis-scented party, and to Peter it was a stepping stone to a job that wasn’t at his father’s butcher shop. All of them had taken some time to adjust, but by third year Hogwarts had settled over them like a well-worn cloak. And yet and yet Remus felt suffocated by daily lies, acting like he knew who The Ghoulies were, pretending to give a fuck about Quidditch, smothering the natural lilt of his voice inherited from his Puerto Rican mother, pulling his long sleeves over new scars even on that first warm spring day when the melted snow made the earth smell heady and new and the girls would ditch class to lay out on the Beach in shorts, bared midriffs and sunglasses. He wanted to feel the grass on his knees and bare shoulders, he wanted to suck his teeth when scolding his friends without feeling a rush of hot shame. But most of all, he wanted someone to go see some goddamn live Muggle music.  
  
So when he overheard the owner of his favorite record store tell a customer that the Modern Lovers were back in town and playing a show in Cambridge, Remus decided it was time to engage. It took some doing to convince Peter to sneak out with them past curfew, but James and Sirius were immediately on board. At the time Remus assumed they were simply bored of exploring Hogwarts with James’s invisibility cloak, but several years later James would admit that they were too surprised by the invitation to refuse. They hadn’t realized Remus could get that excited about _anything_ , much less something fun like a concert. “You were kind of wet blanket,” he’d say and smile apologetically. A logical part of Remus understood, but the weary part of Remus resented that James would always have a hard time understanding how necessary silence had been for Remus during their early Hogwarts years. That same weary Remus spared a moment to pity Lily, who understood silence and was pregnant with a child she would have teach it to by herself.  
  
When the four friends, not yet Marauders, approached a fairly nondescript brownstone crawling with well-dressed Harvard students and less-well-dressed Northeastern students, Sirius asked Remus if he knew the password to get inside. It was physically painful for Remus to not roll his eyes, so Peter did it for him with a chuckle. “Dude, Muggles only use passwords if they’re in the mafia.” Remus allowed himself to laugh when James asked if The Mafia was the band they were here to see.  
  
Once inside, none of them dared approach the makeshift bar. Instead they huddled nervously against one of the walls, pretending to belong and trying to mimic the bodies and voices around them. James overheard someone announce they were ‘stoked’ and wouldn’t stop saying it for weeks. Peter eyed a pair of converses he begged his sister to buy for him the following summer. It was an educational experience for all of them. Sirius made a bad joke about where the Old-Fashioned Lovers were playing.  
  
Remus only knew a few songs by the band from a bootleg of a live show that Gideon Prewett had played for him, but _Pablo Picasso_ in particular had reminded him of Sirius. _He was only five foot three, girls could not resist the stare. Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole._ Gideon had unsubtly dropped a hint that he felt the song described himself, but at fifteen he was already a gangly five foot seven and Remus saw nothing special in his stare. This would change, but in 1973 he hadn’t yet grown to understand the relationship between the awkward shifting in his seat and any time he stared too long at a picture of Iggy Pop.  
  
The boys barely spoke between sets and then finally finally finally Jonathan Richman came on stage. In hindsight the band members were all limbs and hair on stage, but in that moment Remus could only take in Richman’s rueful smile, relishing in his deadpan humor and the way the entire room followed the ebb and flow of his voice and no one was edging away. He not only wanted to be him, but he wanted to close his eyes and pretend the words belonged only to him. Even the more upbeat songs pulled Remus away from his constant anxieties and he yelled along with the rest of the audience even though he didn’t know the words.  
  
In 1984 Remus will watch Jonathan Richman perform _Hospital_ again in a concert hall in Catalonia and will try to laugh at how obvious it should have been even at thirteen that he would fall in love with Sirius Black. He will hum the song for days, until the Hidebehind he works for threatens to disembowel him if he doesn’t stop acting like a llum de ganxo. Remus will curse back halfheartedly, but the echoes remain until he gets blackout drunk and wakes up with vomit drying on his shirt and pieces of his new Modern Lovers record floating in the toilet bowl.  
  
_I can’t stand what you do, but I’m in love with your eyes_  
  
The morning after the Modern Lovers show in 1973, Gideon took up as much space as possible in his favorite Gryffindor armchair as Remus rambled on about the show, hiding his jealousy and respect well. The rush of getting away with sneaking out to go to a Muggle concert where they could have (but hadn’t) gotten drunk or smoked pot had passed and James, Peter and Sirius were deeply invested in a game of chess in which Peter (always the better strategist, always with an eye on the endgame) went from one side to the other, advising both James and Sirius to make things more interesting. No one interrupted Remus as he went on to talk about how he wouldn’t mind learning to play drums except he didn’t have anywhere to put them (or money to buy them, but that went without saying) and that he never thought Richman would look so clean cut and _suburban_ , that—  
  
“Have y’listened to Lou Reed?”  
  
In 1996, at 12 Grimmauld Pl., Molly will share two bottles of wine with Sirius and Remus and laugh herself hoarse at Remus’s retelling of the first time they met, shortly after Molly had found out it was Remus who had convinced her younger brother to take the Knight bus to New York to see a punk show.  
  
“I thought you were going to set me on fire, there were sparks flying out of your hair. And, if you can believe it, I really did think it would make you feel better to know that the blood on his shirt wasn’t his—”  
  
Sirius will laugh along, but he’ll only be pretending to remember. 1976 will be mostly lost to him by that point and after some brief historical mathematics he figures this was probably around the time that Remus still believed Sirius was beyond forgiveness. In their youth they’d really believed Snape’s brush with a werewolf mangling was the biggest test of their friendship and once they got past that, nothing else could ever come between—  
  
Sirius will look up from his hands, pale and steepled on his lap, in 1996, to watch Remus comforting Molly. She will be mumbling about her father’s LP collection and how he encouraged all his children to share in his joy of music. “But Gid was really the only one, they’d sit in silence listening to Johnny Cash.“ The deep breath Molly takes before continuing will shatter the air around Sirius and he can’t look Remus in the eye or else he’ll shatter with it. “Part of the reason I think Arthur married me was to get direct access to Gideon’s records. Before he died…he must have known something was coming… he told Arthur they were all his.”  
  
Not all of them, Sirius will think, but say nothing. The memory is stored delicately on the shelf where almost all his recollections of 1980 are safe and sound. They are all poisoned by suspicion, blood and cheap gin, which did not appeal to the dementors. Gideon knocked on the door Sirius shared with Remus and the rat, soaked from the spring thunderstorm and dripping on their brown welcome mat. Sirius told him that Remus was out (he was) and that he wouldn’t be back any time soon (the first lie). After waiting and not receiving an invitation to sit or to at least an offer to dry off in the bathroom, Gideon pushed a paper bag toward him. The bag was heavier than it looked and the impermeability spell was holding extremely well. He went to open it, but Gideon interrupted. “Could you give that t’Remus?”  
  
“Do you want to leave a message?“ Sirius snarled back.  
  
Gideon was used to Sirus’ tantrums and so he only shook his head. “Just make sure he gets ‘em.” Sirius nodded (the second lie). After Gideon left, Sirius laid the records out across the kitchen table. Even after all the shows Remus had dragged him to over the years, he still hadn’t picked up a real taste for Muggle music and he couldn’t recognize any of the bands on the covers. He wondered if Gideon was still in love with Remus as he removed the vinyl from the sleeves and stepped on them until they were shattered. He transfigured the pieces into a paperweight of a sleek black dog.  
  
The third and biggest lie will be on his tongue in 1996. He’ll lean over to place one of his hands on Molly’s knee and tell her that they all miss Gideon. Inside Sirius feels something like tar churning and remembers that the only parts left of him are the ugly dangerous parts. He is proud that he will be able to be useful to Dumbledore as a weapon, but understands that once this war is over there will be no use for all his sharp edges.  
  
But in 1973 they were all so soft, sprawled out on top of their pillows on the floor as Gideon's Velvet Underground bootleg serenaded them an introduction for all the beautiful painful years to follow.


	2. Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1974: riots in Southie
> 
> Where Sirius is not as tough as he looks, which may not be much.
> 
> cw: racism, mentions of racial violence

The staff at Hogwarts were careful to shelter the students from local muggle happenings, for a number of different reasons. Some of them ascribed to the conservative principle that what muggles got up to was their own godric damned prerogative and didn’t have anything to do with wizards. Others were worried that knowing what was going on outside of the Hogwarts’ carefully charmed hedgerows might tempt the more unscrupulous students to slip out and join the havoc. Still more simply didn’t overthink the directives sent down by Dumbledore and carried out his instructions to the letter because their jobs were comfortable and the Hogwarts School Board didn’t believe in tenure.  
  
Still, there were enough students from Boston that news came in anyway about the school desegregation and the accompanying protests. For the fourth year students the leak sprung from Lily Evans and Severus Snape, Southie students who were only just losing their accents. They were both quite outspoken about the issue, sharing all the ghoulish details during breaks about the tense atmosphere in South Boston High, how some days hardly _anyone_ was showing up to school at all. Lily spoke authoritatively because her sister was attending South Boston High, but as a freshman, so she was at no risk of being bussed to Roxbury—yet.  
  
“I mean, can you believe it? There’s a school half a mile from our house, but they want to put us on a bus to Roxbury because some stupid know-nothing judge said we’re racist?” Lily, not normally the center of attention but clearly enjoying the opportunity, was fiery-eyed with indignation at the injustices happening to other people. A mixed-House group of students were gathered around the picnic table, some even standing to listen in on the muggle news. James, who’d taken to circling Lily like a tenacious pigeon who’d spotted an abandoned sandwich, had dragged his three friends over as soon as he’d seen Lily come outside. Remus had been reluctant to leave his comfortable spot on the lawn, but he silently forced his sore muscles to cooperate as he followed his friend and traded sneering remarks with Peter and Sirius about James’s crush.  
  
But you have to draw the line somewhere, and finally, after Remus heard Severus repeat that whites had rights, too one last fucking time, he rolled his eyes and started packing up his things. “Yeah, white people have lots of rights. Right to throw eggs at busses fulla black kids and call them n—.”  
  
So far no one had disagreed with Lily and Severus, most of them just nodding along and looking either worried or sympathetic, which Remus almost found amusing because he was sure some of them didn’t even know what a bus was. But here, in front of him, was a cutting reminder that he himself was bussed into Hogwarts. It didn’t feel as obvious because almost no one at Hogwarts from was Boston, or even Massachusetts, but enough of the students came from the same mold that Remus regularly felt like he was drowning. If anything, Lily, along with Gid and a few other poor students, made Remus feel less taut and cautious and were a welcome respite when the rest of Hogwarts seemed intent on reminding him that he didn’t belong here.  
  
But in the end, Lily really was more of the same.  
  
“Remus!” Lily exclaimed, drowning out his last word. “It’s not about color at all. This is tearin us all apart, it’s not helping!” Lily responded, her irritation and defensiveness elongating some of her ‘a’s and turning them nasal.  
  
Remus had heard the rumblings that summer, even in Newark. His cousins, who lived in the Bronx, had made jokes about white kids getting bussed into their schools. “They’ll need translators!” they howled.  
  
Translations can be useful, but eventually it will get to the point where you get tired of clarifying and you expect the other person to just learn your fucking language. Remus was not a fan of the art of debate, so he didn’t engage with Lily and instead broke away from the group to head for the library, where colorblind silence reigned. He heard Severus mutter something about how Remus probably made up that stuff about the eggs, which he also ignored.  
  
Remus had his own source in Gideon, whose family lived in a Irish-American wizarding enclave in Roslindale.  His older sister, Molly had moved her small family into their parents' house and had a front row seat into the whole mess. Roslindale was calm, Gideon told Remus, comparatively, but South Boston was getting pretty bad. “Even some of the black parents aren’t letting their kids go, saying they’re scared they’ll get beat up. Imagine!” He did, and in Remus’s imagination the white Southie kids looked a lot like the sneering Slytherin students at lunch.  
  
When the sun was damped by cloudy nightfall Remus emerged from the library, still distractedly considering the transfiguration principles behind using photosynthesis to extract magical energy from plants without killing them. Ms. Sprout had warned them that there would be a follow-up assignment involving the ethnical implications of extracting from living beings, which Remus was intrigued by but also wary of. He wasn’t sure a teacher that used fertilizer with selkie skin as an ingredient was an authority on the subject of morality.  
  
His best laid plan to go straight to bed was led astray by Peter, who hijacked him in mid conversation with the Fat Lady and dragged him to a an empty sofa in the corner of the common room. “Where have you been?!” He didn’t wait to hear Remus’ answer before plowing forward, describing in gory detail the scene following his exit that afternoon. Remus’ knee-jerk response to hearing that Sirius had tried to punch Severus and had instead ended up with a singed shirt and concussion from being hexed into a tree was exasperation. He was more intrigued by what followed.  
  
“James isn’t speaking to Sirius!” A true crisis for the inhabitants of Marauder Island. Peter’s voice cracked as he explained that James had almost reamed Sirius himself, but only after he and Peter helped him up to the Nurse Pomfrey’s office, of course. While James would never disagree with Sirius in public, behind closed doors Lily Evans was already exerting a heavy magnetic pull. Severus was clearly a goon who could go fly a kite (Peter’s words, not James’), but Lily had painted James a convincing picture.  
  
“I didn’t know James was listening to her anyway, the way he was lookin at her tits,” Remus said, hoping a little levity would allow Peter to take breath and realize the world wouldn’t disintegrate if their two best friends had a fight. Maybe it would even be good for them to remember that differences could be healthy. They hadn’t had any problem accepting that premise when they’d figured out Remus was a werewolf during their second year.  
  
But then again, Remus knew that his friends only understood his secret clinically, through the many layers of book illustrations. They weren’t allowed to see him after his transformations, so they never saw the full brunt of the werewolf’s rage and to young boys the idea of being mauled to death was so distant that they were able to joke about it. Remus didn’t mind the jokes or the unsubtle comments about his furry little problem, but he worried that one day they would decide (like the rest of the world had) that werewolves were held apart for a reason.  That maintaining a healthy distance was the best solution. He didn’t think any of them would sell him out, but there was an expiration date to their friendship.  
  
Peter lips jerked into a small smile. “He’s a good multi-tasker.” But his expression shifted and he looked away as he switched the conversation into a new gear.  
  
“Do you think there’ll be riots in Cambridge?”  
  
They’d both been small boys during the Newark riots, the ashes of which had scattered far beyond the Newark city limits such that both Peter and Remus had grown up breathing them in. The last few years everyone, muggle and wizard alike, had been holding their breath, hoping and sometimes praying that nothing would explode. But in 1974 it finally felt like you could almost let that deep breath out: Nixon had resigned, the war in Vietnam seemed like it was nearly over and Philippe Petit proved to be more capable of magic than any wizard in the 45 minutes he was suspended in mid air on a thin cable between the World Trade Center towers.  
  
“I doubt it, Pete,” Remus lied. Gideon had told him about how a South Boston crowd had yanked a black man out of his car and began beating him with bats and their fists. Fire spread quickly in Boston, where the buildings and people were highly flammable.  
  
Placated, Peter tried to change the subject, but Remus’ patience had run out. He half-listened to Peter’s nervous rambling about the Defense partner he was supposed to duel in two days. He continued to whine all the way up the stairs and barely a pause for breath as they entered their shared room, exchanging a look with Remus after seeing James was already in bed and cocooned into his comforter. There was no way James, the notorious night owl, was asleep before midnight, but he ignored them both. Remus cared enough to be hurt, but had his revenge by talking to Peter for the better part of an hour and offering to help him practice his defensive charms. Fuck James.  
  
Outside the campus was unnervingly quiet, the sounds of nature broken only by the shifting of teenaged bodies and muffled snores. Remus knew there were cars and motorcycles driving past Hogwarts, but the sounds were cancelled out by spells to trick the students and staff into thinking they were isolated. In fact, Memorial Drive was half a mile away from his bed and in just ten minutes you could be on Mass Ave., driving through Boston into Roxbury, into Rhode Island and then into the dark ocean where in the distance you’d eventually be greeted by the glittering island lights of Puerto Rico. And beyond that Remus didn’t really know.  
  
A slightly older Remus would find out what lay beyond, with the same hope that breathing different dirty air would snap something into place inside him. Nothing would snap except for a few inconsequential bones, but he would pick up several languages along the way and belatedly realize loneliness didn’t belong to him. On the riverbed of a jungle, a Tlanusi would remind him that he was too old to be such a whiny little bitch, which somehow sounded even ruder in Spanish.  
  
That night in the autumn of 1974, unable to sleep in that deafening silence, Remus slipped out of their room under James’ invisibility cloak and made his way to Pomfrey’s office. Sirius was alone and curled up on his side as Remus approached. He thought about yanking the covers off to scare him, but decided the trouble of waking up Pomfrey wasn’t worth it.  
  
“Sirius.“  
  
“Sirius.”  
  
“Sirius!”  
  
The boy startled awake, the whites of his eyes stark in the dark room. Remus pulled the cloak off his head then told Sirius to scooch over to let him sit on the bed. He complied, blinking sleep away and frowning. “What are you doing here?”  
  
Remus ignored the question. “I thought you weren’t s’posed to fall asleep if you had a concussion.”  
  
Sirius pulled himself up and sat against the headboard, pulling his knobby knees toward him. “I didn’t have a fucking concussion,” he whined. “Pomfrey even said I could go back, but James—” The words caught in his throat and Remus realized Peter wasn’t the only one who thought the world was splintering. He wanted to tell Sirius that everything had started crumbling long before today, probably long before they had even been born, and that the deep crevice was just biding its time before it invited them all in.  
  
Instead, he asked Sirius why he did it. “I didn’t think you cared about desegregation.”  
  
Sirius still hadn’t looked at him since his wide eyes first took him in, but Remus could see his thin lips dip into a near-pout. The silence stretched so long that Remus thought Sirius was going to ignore him and opened his mouth to inform the spoiled brat that if he was going to be a baby Remus would leave.  
  
“I’m rich, not stupid. I know it’s not okay to punish someone for being different. You can’t just pretend you don’t hate them by ignoring them.” Was Sirius really comparing his current status as the Black black sheep to the struggle of the black American?  
  
“I’m sure stupid Severus would say that same bunk about werewolves, you know,” Sirius continued with more confidence, taking Remus’ lack of a response as agreement. “When all you have to do is talk to a stupid werewolf and realize that they’re just as smart, just as cool, just as—”  
  
Remus raised his hand to cut him off, glad the shadows would smother his blush. “Yeah and just as bad at Potions.“ The bad joke fell flat, but that was better than the reminder that he might be no better off than those kids on the bus to South Boston.  
  
“I’m not supposed to tell you yet, but… fuck James. If I show you something, will you promise not to get mad?” Sirius was still ( _still_!) looking down at his knees but must have seen Remus shrug out of the corner of his eyes.  
  
Nothing would ever compare to watching Sirius change into Padfoot for the first time on that too-soft bed, the spot where his friend had been curled into himself occupied by a big black beast of a dog. Immediately the smell of dog overtook Remus as the creature threw himself at the wolf, licking his nose and jaw excitedly. Remus tried to shove him off, laughing, but the dog was strong and had the benefit of surprise.  
  
Explanations would come later and helped heal the small divide between James and Sirius until it was barely noticeable. Even when a white boy was stabbed by a black student a few weeks before December and South Boston did riot, none of the Marauders brought it up, although Remus conscientiously avoided both Lily and Severus until he left for New Jersey. They managed to distract themselves from the outside world by replaying their triumphs during the November full moon and planning future adventures. Remus was as thrilled as any of them by the possibilities now available once he got past his disbelief and guilt.  
  
But nothing like that first night with Padfoot shedding his thick fur all over Remus and the cloak and bed, telling Remus over and over again that he belonged.


	3. No Voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1976: A bicentennial in New York.
> 
> Where Remus and Peter are hungry, tired, poor and yearning to breathe free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if Peter and Remus would have just jumped on the subway in the 70s but let’s suspend disbelief for a moment— I believe strongly in the healing power of public transportation. :)
> 
> cw: slightly dubious consent in the sense that there are drunken sexual encounters involved.

    Until Sirius proved himself to be a sincerely stupid boy, the four Marauders had made plans to spend the first month of the summer at the Potters’ house in Providence. Before them had lain four weeks pregnant with stolen drinks, films, college girls and pot. But in that split-second decision to tell Severus that if he really wanted to know how they stayed friends with Remus he should push on the knot at the base of the Whomping Willow, Sirius tore their summer to shreds. Peter told James his father needed him at home all summer now that his older sister was moving out, but turned to Remus after the train had pulled out of the Providence station with an unfamiliar glower.  
  
    “I can barely stop myself from hexing him, there’s no fucking way I can share a room with him til August.”  
  
    While hindsight can reveal a clear path from B to A, sometimes it obfuscates. For Remus, it was easier to assume Peter taking Remus’s side was the beginning of Peter’s greatest performance; kinder to believe that this was Peter’s gentle way manipulating Remus into trusting him above the others. But if you pull the curtains aside it becomes clear as day that Peter was no great actor, not in 1976 and not in 1981. While he was occasionally a decent con man, relying always on slight of hand and misdirection, what truly drove him was terror. And that summer Death Eaters and Voldemort had yet to strike a deep chord with the magical community and were no more threatening to the motions of Peter’s daily life than IRA bombs let off in Europe.  
  
    It would always be harder for Remus to accept that Peter was trying to protect him, in his own twisted way, because he valued Remus. Later on, when the clues began to accumulate, Remus would think back to the expression on Peter’s face as he told Remus they were going to have just as much fun (more!) in the city that summer (because there is ever only one). “After all,” Peter added with a grin verging on a leer, “it’s the goddamn bicentennial.”  
  
    The goddamn bicentennial, indeed.  
  
    The bicentennial had a strange effect on Remus’ parents. Neither of them had ever been particularly social people, which could have been excused by their worry that a friend might recognize Remus’s reoccurring illness as lycanthropy. However, even apart from that, Lyall and Esperanza Lupin had an different way of looking at the world and the people trapped in it alongside them. Their son was an exception, but as a rule they were two people who did not like groups and didn’t hold much to labels. Esperanza saw her Puerto Rican friends and family increasingly caught up in protesting their treatment by their fellow American citizens, but she kept a wary distance from it all and told Remus she expected him to know better than to get involved in that kind of trouble. In a similar but less serious strain, Lyall had almost come to blows with his brother in law last Christmas when he told them he didn’t even like Frank Sinatra. They weren’t the type of mixed couple who turned holiday gatherings in New Jersey into a small bridge between Puerto Rico and Italy. In general neither of them spent much time with their large families and Esperanza was not welcome at any of the multiple Lupin households (not that she minded).  
  
    And so it came as shock to their own son when he arrived for summer break and his parents announced they were going to have a Fourth of July party.  
  
    Remus and Peter had already made plans to meet at St. Mark’s and had high expectations for getting into all kinds of excitement that they could claims as their own rather than a Marauders excursion. He didn’t want to come entirely clean to his parents, so he lied and told them he wanted to see the fireworks at Coney Island. “Why do you wanna do this anyway? We’ve never had a party.”  
  
    “This isn’t a party, _mijo_ ,” Esperanza told her son, receipts spread out on the kitchen table in front of her. “I’m just cooking mofongo and your Tío Felix is going to bring some food from his restaurant. I invited some people from Costa, not a big thing.“ Remus knew better than to argue with her—especially in the middle of sorting out reimbursements for the travel agency she worked at—but inviting just Tío Felix was a little like saying you only had one ant. There’d soon be a trail.  
  
    But upon hearing his mother’s side of the invitation list, his natural reasonable reared its head: “Dad, but no one from your family is coming, right? I mean, the muggle music alone might freak them out.” Lyall snorted, but said nothing. That was a relief, at least; there was only so much damage control Remus was interested in doing on July 5th.  
  
    On the morning of July 4th, 1976, Esperanza did not have to knock on anyone’s door to let them know it was time to help her clean the apartment. Instead she put on Wilfrido Vargas and greeted the neighborhood—but especially Lyall and Remus—with lively trumpets and accordion. Remus groaned, rolled over once and managed to cheer himself up by remembering he would miss his Tio Felix’s drunken accordion playing. When he finally emerged from his bedroom, he shared a pained look with his father over the sink as part of their familiar ritual; Lyall was tapping his feet.  
  
    As Remus wiped down the the kitchen counter, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. His mother was accosted by her husband on her way through the third round of mopping. Lyall had been exiled to make the living room windows as transparent as the previous renters would allow, but was lured away from his task on his way to rinse out the rag in the bathroom. The beat of his mother’s music was repetitive, a complaint Remus made frequently about his mother’s favorite genre, but which fell on deaf ears. But the drumbeat wasn’t meant to be listened to, he realized, watching his father cup his mother’s waist with the hand that wasn’t holding a dirty rag. It was meant to be consumed, converted from sweet sugar into energy, from a flirtatious glance into hungry lips and a satisfied swagger. He looked away and felt the blood rush to his face when he saw his father’s hand sneak downward as Lyall spun Esperanza around her mop.  
  
    “Ay, Lyall…!”  
  
    If they had been a different kind of family, maybe like the Potters, Remus might have one day asked his mother how she’d met his father. What song had made her fall in love with him? Had he learned to dance for her? How many flavors of love and lust had they sampled before they ended up together in a Seventh Avenue apartment with a werewolf son?  
  
    For a number of reasons those questions would go unanswered.  
  
    At eleven Remus told his mother he really did need to go, he was already going to be late meeting Peter. Every window was pushed open, even the one that needed a piece of wood to stay up, but the mofongo cooking on the stove made the kitchen into its own small corner of hell. It wasn’t even properly humid that day, but Remus was already starting to sweat through his t-shirt.  
  
    A t-shirt that his mother’s gaze paused on. It wasn’t anything special, Remus had thought when he’d put it on. It was an older shirt that he’d begun to outgrow, but he’d convinced himself that if he had to bare his scarred arms (and there was no other way of entering the subway) he might as well show off what was becoming a decent upper body.  
  
    “ _Vas a salir así, papito_?”  
  
    Remus sighed quietly and shrugged. “Yeah, my plan was to go like this. Should I go outside like a nun, instead?”  
  
    “ _Cuidado_ , boy, I don’t gotta let you go nowhere…” she snapped, turning fully away from the stove.  
  
    This was dangerous territory, so Remus put on his best prefect face. “Ma, can I try your mofongo before I go?”  
  
    Esperanza hadn’t been born yesterday, but as Lyall had told her repeatedly that week, they couldn’t keep Remus locked up any more than they already did. She allowed her son to think that he had distracted her, serving him a bowl of broth on its own; she hadn’t fried the pork yet. She snuck glances at her son, hunched over his food as if protecting it. The soft face of a child was being blurred away a prominent Lupin chin and those Luna eyes. It wasn’t the first time she had realized that her son was leaving them, but it was the first time she wondered if he was already gone.  
  
    Remus looked up at his mother, whose eyes were round with fear. He stood up, holding his empty bowl, and walked past her to the sink. Another son might have hugged her or slung an arm around her shoulders. Instead he began washing his dirty dishes, waiting for her to decide whether to express her feelings or swallow them.  
  
    “Remi.” He paused, but didn’t look up. He couldn’t speak through the lump in his throat. “Don’t do anything stupid.”  
  
    He laughed, told his mother to have fun and then rushed out the door before he succumbed and told his mother he loved her, too.  
  
    The thick platano air of his kitchen had prepared him for the thick humidity outside as well as for the pungent smell of sweat and feet in the bus. It took him almost an hour to get into Manhattan thanks to the detours and the traffic of people rushing to the New York harbor. It hadn’t occurred to Remus’ sixteen year old logic that anyone else would want to go to Manhattan to celebrate two-hundred years of America, a bicentennial was just like any other anniversary for a boy who didn’t want to look too far ahead. The subways were packed and delayed, so by the time he met Peter at Astor Place the blonde boy was soaked and desperately sipping on a soda.  
  
    “Fuck, Remus! I was afraid you’d pussied out!”  
  
    “Sorry, sorry, I had to help my parents with something.” Peter magnanimously offered Remus some of his coke, but the other boy refused, worried about needing to find a bathroom later on. His friends had no problem pulling out their dicks to pee on anything, but Remus was less of an exhibitionist.  
  
    They wandered aimlessly for about an hour, catching each other up on all the new happenings since the end of the spring semester. There wasn’t much in Remus’ case (“Do you think anyone’ll notice if I set some cooling charms in my room? My dad refuses to do it, saying it’ll make the upstairs apartment even hotter, but I think that might be bullshit, you know? I think it’s some kinda resiliency shit.”) Peter, on the other hand, had big news.  
  
    “She’s super fine, Moony. Like she wears these little shorts, that’s how I first noticed her. I think even you can appreciate a fine set of legs like hers, man. Even you...” Peter rambled for about fifteen minutes before Remus could interrupt to ask the name of the Eighth Wonder of the World.  
  
    “Mindy. She goes to St. Milburga’s with Patricia,” Peter explained. Patricia was Peter’s younger sister by two years who hadn’t wanted to leave the city to attend Hogwarts and had instead applied to St. Milburga’s Academy, a private wizarding school infamous for for its rumored disciplinary methods and its unusually religious curriculum. Hogwarts--like most wizarding schools-- was secular, and as a result the Catholicism Patricia brought back from school set her apart from the rest of her family. Peter was intrigued by his sister’s prayers and Bible, but Remus had less patience for those conversations, having attended more than his fair share of Catholic masses as a child with his mother. Once he’d found out it wasn’t all that impressive to walk on water or turn water to wine, Catholicism in particular and religion in general lost its shine.  
  
    Finally, clearly having felt he’d adequately extolled all of Mindy’s possible virtues, Peter took a breath and shot his friend a sheepish look. A look that piqued Remus’ suspicions…  
  
    “So I kinda invited her along today,” Peter let out in a rush. “I mean, only if you’re okay with it, duh, but I think you’ll like her! I really like her!” He seemed surprised to hear himself make that final admission, but if he blushed it was impossible to tell from his already blotching face.  
  
    Remus shrugged and didn’t deeply consider the idea, knowing full well he would yield to his friend regardless of his feelings about the change in plans. “The more the merrier.”  
  
    Peter’s face split into a wide grin and Remus briefly wondered if he was making a mistake. “But let’s just make sure we end up spending the night at your place, yeah?” he added quickly, before Peter got any ideas. His shorter friend nodded fervently and Remus felt a little bad for pushing the point. After all, Peter wasn’t Sirius or James, who would easily wander off with a girl and completely forget about the friends they’d left stranded.  
  
    The two of them stopped to eat a couple slices of pizza in the first place they could seat themselves in front of a large fan, and then they descended into the sticky subway to catch the train uptown to Mindy’s.  
  
    They got off the 6 train on 86th and after ten minutes got their bearings in the unfamiliar neighborhood. Even Peter had rarely ventured into the Upper East Side, largely preferring the familiar safety of his neighborhood. When they finally found themselves in front of her apartment building they were appropriately awed by its ornate entrance and the doorman, who took one look at them and told them to wait downstairs for Miss Rhodes. Neither had really wanted to go up to her apartment, but they were offended that they hadn’t been given the option to refuse. They sulkily dragged their sneakers across the mosaic floor tiles toward the glass doors at the entrance until they far enough from the doorman to  avoid being overheard.  
  
    “This is bullshit, I’m sure they wouldn’t do this if we were girls,” Peter grumbled. Remus was sure it also had something to do with the way his tight curls were growing out into a small fro, but he didn’t say it out loud. It was bad enough for everyone else to treat him like he didn’t belong here, at least Peter was lumping them together as outsiders.  
  
    They turned when the elevator door dinged open and out popped a lanky girl in yellow shorts as revealing as Peter had promised, a black halter top and a grin that burned through any resentment born from the doorman’s attitude. Her blonde hair fell over her shoulders messily and from up close was a little stringy, as if she hadn’t bothered to shower for a few days. But Remus only noticed those details later, when he was already pretty drunk and trying not to watch his friend make out with her. When she threw her arms around him in greeting after launching herself at Peter all Remus noticed was how much soft skin was touching his and that she smelled like fennel. After she pulled away, Remus glanced over at the doorman, who was not bothering to hide his glower.  
  
    “Hey, guys, maybe we should get going.”  
  
    Mindy shot them another blinding smile and pulled each of the boy toward her until their arms were linked. “That’s a marvelous idea, Remus. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”  
  
    She wouldn’t hear of them taking the subway, so they walked to Fifth Ave, still arm-in-arm despite the heat and Remus’s growing impatience with the physical contact. The skin of her shoulder stuck to his until she finally pulled away to wave her arm frantically at a taxi. She hadn’t stopped talking since they’d left her apartment, seemingly only taking a breath to screech: TAXI! at the top of her lungs.  
  
    The witch knew exactly where to direct the taxi and Peter and Remus followed like chicks. The driver dropped them off in front of a bar in the Village, where the boys half-heartedly offered to pay but gratefully let her lean over the passenger side window to hand the driver a few bills, their eyes falling on the way the fabric of her shorts pulled tight over her ass.  
  
    Remus had never been interested in a girl before and had assumed he was safe from the confusing heterosexual mating rituals. And here was a girl that was off-limits for so many reasons, a girl he could barely hold a conversation with without Peter, and he wondered what it would feel like to run his fingers along her bare back, to slowly trace the bumps of her spine.  
  
    Peter and Remus nervously hung back when they realized Mindy intended to just waltz into a bar at two in the afternoon. As soon as she realized that she was no longer flanked by her groupies, she shot them an impatient look over her shoulder, green eyes flashing. She asked if they had fakes (they didn’t) and letting out a long exhale she opened the door and herded them inside. She told them she would deal with it, but in the end no one bothered to ask them anything. As long as they had cash to leave at the bar, the bartender kept serving them.  
  
    In the hours that followed Remus swung dramatically between being in awe of Mindy and needing to get away from her. She was able to ask Remus questions that made him feel flayed and stare at him with eyes that were too far apart, waiting for his answer. This resulted in Remus throwing back the rest of his drink faster than was necessary to avoid the question and repeatedly getting up for another or to the bathroom.  
  
    By the time the sun was starting to get ready to hide away, both Peter and Remus had run right past tipsy and had to concentrate to avoid stumbling out of the booth. It was hard to tell if Mindy was as fucked up as they were, they didn’t really know her. At some point that Peter and Remus would be unable to recall the next day Mindy had made friends with a few men seated at the bar. They laughed with her, showing off their trim waists and young abs. As Mindy talked to them Remus’ eyes followed the dark wispy trails into the tops of their shorts, the alcohol making him brave.  
  
    One of them, blonde hair peaking out from underneath his cap and acne scars littering his jaw, offered to buy Remus a drink. Remus made a noise as he almost choked on his spit. Is that what people did now, proposition strange men in shadowy, moist bars? He nodded and smiled slightly, the idea of being propositioned strumming deliciously through him. Besides the slight throbbing of his blood in his ears, hands and groin, his body felt numb and weightless, like he could float away and take the blonde man with him. His smile widened as he imagined tearing a hole through the brick wall and soaring through the fireworks. As he smiled he felt the skin of his face tingle.  
  
    The blonde man (although, looking back, a much older Remus will recognize they were both boys) brought back two shots of tequila, which Remus downed immediately, falling along with it into a alcoholic fog. He lifted himself back out of it to find himself on a rooftop, kissing the blonde man as they leaned against the parapet. Besides their lips and the man’s right hand on Remus’ lower back underneath his shirt, they were barely touching. Even now that the sun had begun to set, the humidity didn’t seem interested in letting up. Remus bit down gently on the blonde’s lower lip, trying to distract himself the clammy hand rubbing small circles toward the top of his jeans.  
  
    Blearily he pulled away, realizing they weren’t even remotely alone—there are almost thirty people on the rooftop with them. He noticed with relief that Peter and Mindy were among them, talking animately by a fire escape ladder. He met Peter’s eye and his friend’s crooked leer came off as goofy rather than suggestive. Remus laughed, accepted the cigarette offered to him and let the tobacco smoke lead him back into forgetfulness.  
  
    The next day Remus remembered pieces of what followed: the beginning of the fireworks making him jump and how the blonde man laughed into the back of his neck; someone bringing up a radio and Mindy taking his hand to dance to Positively 4th Street ( _If you’re so hurt, why then don’t you show it? You have no faith to lose, and you know it!_ ); spitting off the side of the building with Peter, the top of the parapet digging into his stomach; tumbling onto a sofa with the blonde man, wetness on the inside of his thighs, his toes curling. On July 5th Remus felt the morning sun burning through his eyelids and groaned. He remembered telling the man that was enough when there’d been some whispered mention about a condom and he assumed that sticky fellatio were as far as they’d gotten; he didn’t feel anything beyond the usual soreness of his muscles taking revenge for drunken revelry. He also didn’t feel anyone’s weight on him, so he assumed he was alone.  
  
    Remus opened his eyes to find he wasn’t. The blonde man (why didn’t he remember his name?) looked down at him from the sofa, looking like he’d managed to snag the last donut.  
  
    “Heya. You said you were gonna spontaneously combust if you had to sleep next to me all night, so you graciously took the floor.” His hair stuck out in all directions in a way Remus found endearing.  
  
    A croak escaped instead of words, but Remus was eventually able to clear his throat and string together coherent thoughts. The man told him he looked in the apartment with his three roommates, but he’d offered Mindy and Peter his bed. He lured Remus off the floor with promises of breakfast, which were just two slices of buttered toast, an apple and watery instant coffee. Remus raised his head after inhaling the coffee, starting to get the feeling back in his brain, and caught the man watching him, smirking.  
  
    “So…who’s Sirius?”  
  
    Remus simultaneously choked, dribbled coffee onto his shirt and dropped a piece of his toast. “What?” he asked, gaping.  
  
    “That’s what you called me after I gave you a blowjob.” Remus covered his face in his hands and let out a quiet groan. Why couldn’t he actually spontaneously combust? He didn’t look up when he heard and felt the man pull up a chair next to him. He still didn’t pull his face out from his hands when he felt fingers trace the sensitive scar tissue on his upper arm, but it explicably did make him feel a little calmer.  
  
    “He’s not my boyfriend or anything,” he finally clarified, the words muffled by his palms. After a pause he added, “Right now we’re barely friends.”  
  
    A dry chuckle. “Heard that before. We all have our share of not-boyfriend ex-friends.” The hand wrapped loosely around Remus’ right wrist, index finger pressed against his pulse. “Is he one of those closeted boys desperate to prove they don’t love cock? Or is he just an asshole? Ha ha ha…”  
  
    He’d reeled Remus in. Remus met the blonde’s gaze and smiled sardonically. “Definitely an asshole.”  
  
    When Mindy and Peter emerged from the bedroom, Peter looked like a run-over carcass and Mindy like she’d taken a swig of Pepper-Up Potion without offering any to Peter (likely). The blonde made more bad coffee and toast, which only Mindy and Remus ate. After sharing a few stories from the previous night’s celebrations and teasing each other about their sloppiness, Remus decided it was time to take Peter home before he crawled into a hole in the wall as Wormtail. Mindy offered to pay for the taxi, which Peter wouldn’t have allowed if he were more than half-awake but Remus had no qualms about accepting. He’d Floo from Peter’s to Newark Penn and catch the bus home from there. Hopefully at Pete’s he could also freshen up a little so that he wouldn’t get too many questionable looks from his mother when he arrived.  
  
    Peter fell asleep immediately once the taxi pulled away from the front of the blonde man’s building. Remus let him rest his head on his lap, mindlessly petting his head and praying the boy wouldn’t throw up on him.  
  
    In his other hand he held a small piece of paper. The blonde man had torn a page out of a self-published book of poetry he’d had on his shelf and had scribbled his phone number on it. “Call me next time you’re in the city. I hope he stops being an asshole.” He’d pressed a chaste kiss through Remus’ hangover, filling his nose with the scent of soap and milk. “You’re too adorable to stay mad.”  
  
    He’d been too embarrassed to ask for his name. The page he’d ripped out was a slice of a poem:  
  
You made pissing away  
your gifts look like an art form,  
but striking a profile  
with your arm akimbo  
on the moving sidewalk headed  
toward the precipice cheapens  
every death, not just your own.  
  
    Outside the taxi crossed the Manhattan bridge, the East River’s grey water suddenly sparkling in the midday sun. It hurt Remus’ eyes to stare at the water’s surface, so he looked away.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poem is "No Voice" by Tim Dlugos. Not sure if the poem had been written by 1976.


	4. Vieja Luna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1976: The Whomping Willow's legacy, part I
> 
> Where Gideon inserts himself into Remus' home life, which spits him right back out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Esperanza means Hope in Spanish, so it’s technically her canon name. :)
> 
> cw: homophobia & homophobic violence

    The August air was sticky and Remus reached through the humidity to accept the letter offered by the scrawny Prewett owl. He always wondered how the owls managed to remain undetected in his neighborhood; after all, the only other birds he’d ever seen near his apartment building were pigeons. He’d asked his dad once, who’d shrugged and distractedly answered that we all only really see what we want to see anyway, then resumed his review of the sports section.  
  
    Remus couldn’t argue with that. As he read Gideon’s letter all he saw was boredom:

  
  
_Remus,_  
  
_Not much going on here. Mol is after me to get a job, but I feel like by the time I’m done volunteering I’m so stretched thin I’m spagetti. Fabian got a job testing toys but you know he is better than me at charms. I just lay in bed, listen to records and babysit Billy and Charlie._  
  
_By the way, have you heard Television? Went to In Your Ear last week and they played me a 7 in’ that was some girl singing but the guitar was wow so I asked who if they knew who it was and that asshole Frank gave that look the one WE HATE and told me it was Tom Verlane. He plays in Television and they played me more bootlegs and I think I am in love they play at some place in New York called Sibigibi’s. Sounds italian would your dad know about it? Didn’t want to ask because of the LOOK you know. You should go and come back and tell me all about it._  
  
_Miss you,_  
  
_Gideon_  
  
_PS: I caught Billy showing another little girl his penis again. I’m never having kids._

  
  
    He sighed as he re-read the letter. Remus didn’t have any records of his own and there wasn’t a music shop in Newark that would know anything about rock n roll. He’d never heard of Sibigibis and he doubted his father would be any help. His mind flickered to the scrawled address he’d stuck into Crime and Punishment, but he thought better of it.  
  
    An idea struck him and he ripped a page out of the notebook on his desk:

  
  
_Gid,_  
  
_Ask Frank to find out when they play next and get the address! Grow some balls. Then come down and stay with me a few days, we’ll go see them._  
  
_-R._

  
  
    Remus figured it wasn’t likely Molly would let him come, especially if he was moonlighting as a babysitter on top of “volunteering.” Gideon had made it clear before the end of the school year that he wasn’t allowed to owl anything that made any reference to the work he was doing for Professor Dumbledore’s Order of the Phoenix. He’d been hesitant to tell Remus about it in the first place, but Remus had dragged him down to the Charles and convinced him that there were no spies in the river. In a gush of guilty stream of consciousness, Gideon told Remus that both he and Fabian had been recruited. Gideon had assumed that he and his twin would discuss it before running headfirst into a secret guerilla organization, but Fabian had accepted immediately, leaving Gideon little choice.  
  
    Of course he’d had a choice, Remus reminded him, tossing his cigarette butt into the river. He’d find out that was wrong when he himself was recruited, but by then the Order would be only a secret in the sense that no one talked about it.  
  
    Remus received a response two days later that simply read:

  
  
_Remus,_  
  
_Frank said they play most Fridays. Next week? I’m going crazy._  
  
_Your grateful friend,_  
  
_Gideon_  
  
_PS: I’m an idiot, it’s CBGB._

  
  
    Esperanza Lupin was pleased to finally meet one of Remus’ friends, hoping to gain some insight on her changing son. In preparation, she and Remus cleaned the apartment and she sent Remus out to buy new sheets to put on the couch. On Wednesday she accompanied Remus to Penn Station to wait for Gideon to arrive and peppered him with questions.  
  
    “So he goes to school with you?”  
  
    “Yeah, he did. He just finished.”  
  
    “Ah, okay. Then what is he doing now?”  
  
    “Uh, he’s looking for something stable, I think. Kinda working on a side project leftover from school.”  
  
    “So he didn’t graduate?”  
  
    “No, he did, he’s just helping out, I think, I don’t really know, ma, we don’t talk about that.”  
  
    “Okay okay, _no me muerdas_. So what do you talk about?”  
  
    Boys and “music, mostly.” Remus looked away from his mother and focused on memorizing the shape of the man sleeping on the bench further down the bus stop.  
  
    His mother didn’t take the hint. “Huh, so he also likes that noise noise rock. It’s too much, none of those boys you listen to can sing. They sound like dogs!” Remus rolled his eyes; _one time_ his cousin had lent him a Rolling Stones album and now his mom was an expert.  
  
    “Yeah, well, we can’t all listen to Celia Cruz.” In fact, Gideon would get a kick out of all the salsa he heard in and around Remus’ apartment, something Remus would both appreciate and reproach, as if Gideon had taken something precious without permission. Hogwarts had consumed so much already, after a certain point the little boy Remus Lupin had been upon boarding the Hogwarts Express would be completely dissolved.  
  
    The Knight Bus was late but finally Gideon arrived, looking frazzled at first, then pleased to see his friend and a mother figure that wasn’t his own. He politely greeted Esperanza as Mrs. Lupin and accepted her loose hug and kiss on the check without stiffening, which Esperanza ate up. Gideon hugged Remus with both arms and Remus realized with a rush that he’d missed Gideon. After almost a whole summer with only sporadic news from James and none at all from Sirius, he realized he’d become accustomed to tactile expression of friendship. Peter was different, they only touched when they were drunk or when Peter laid his hungover head on Remus’s leg.  
  
    Remus’ mother and Gideon talked easily about his bus ride as Remus went down the same Sirius-shaped rabbit hole he’d been tempted towards at least once a week since the June moon and the 4th of July—predictable anger, discomforting guilt accompanied by shame and the unrelenting urge to pretend it had never happened. They caught the bus to the Seventh Ave apartment and Gideon’s questions about everything they saw pulled Remus out of his reverie. He knew Gideon wasn’t actually in awe of Newark, it wasn’t an entirely different world from Roslindale, but it was his quiet way of telling Remus to snap out of it.  
  
    Lyall was in bed by the time they got back to the apartment; he had to drive out the next day to Pittsburgh to do work on a big contract with a magical steel mill out there. Esperanza quietly padded around the kitchen, offering Gideon everything from coffee to lasagna. The perfect guest, Gideon responded No, Thank You until Remus jammed his foot into his friend’s thigh and hissed, “Just say yes! She’s getting pissed and she’s not gonna leave ’til you eat!” Despite all his refusals, Gideon scarfed down the lasagna; Esperanza served herself and Remus some, too, even though they’d eaten before leaving.  
  
    Esperanza got a good feeling from the red-headed boy perched on the couch next to her son. He seemed a little nervous, but there was a natural openness to him that she hoped would rub off on Remus. She loved her son, but she often wondered if they’d done him a disservice by guarding him so closely. This was a conversation she had frequently with herself since Lyall had gruffly refused to keep rehashing the past.  
  
    But the past was burned onto the inside of Esperanza’s eyelids. How could Lyall expect her to ever set aside how the wolf had left her Remus mangled in his bedroom that night, his thigh covered in dark blood? How could she forget the look in the werewolf’s intelligent eyes when she opened the door, her son’s blood staining his muzzle like a cruel lipstick? The wolf didn’t lunge at her, he (it!) just turned away, calmly padding back toward the open window and climbing down the fire escape.  
  
    Maybe if Lyall had been home that night nothing would have happened. Maybe if he’d married a witch Remus would have had a mother that wasn’t useless. Maybe if Lyall hadn’t decided to pick unnecessary fights with werewolf pack leaders their son would never know what it was like to be in chains. Their lives were endless sets of options, tangled webs of yes, no and maybes all caught up in one another. Esperanza had been taught to believe in one linear story, the path that God had lain out for every living creature on His earth. Everything happens for a reason, _Dios sabe_.  
  
    She’d tried to keep going to church after Remus was bit, but the hymns were drowned out by a constant buzzing. That was the first step she’d taken away from a family who didn’t understand why she was suddenly so sad and so thin. They tried to feed her and Remus, constantly showing up their apartment with food, but both of them stayed thin and wane. Lyall ate their leftovers.  
  
    The small family that never grew any larger (despite Esperanza’s mother asking every Saturday morning when they had their regular phone calls when she was going to give Remus a baby brother, and hopefully one with a name that was easier to pronounce!) moved in with Esperanza’s brother Felix in Newark. He and his wife didn’t ask any questions, which allowed Esperanza to find what she hoped was the perfect moment to confess what had happened. They didn’t believe her until Esperanza forced Lyall to show them magic, after which Felix’s wife crossed herself and left the apartment.  
  
    Felix would eventually get a kick about having a wizard as a brother-in-law and wouldn’t miss an opportunity to dedicate Magia Rosa to their “mystical” love when he inevitably got drunk and began serenading the crowd at family gatherings. But at first Esperanza remembered the wary way he’d been around his nephew, as if afraid the small boy would snap at him like a rabid dog. She could tell Remus noticed, and she was forced to watch her little boy pull into himself from behind the glass of her own fear.  
  
    Maybe if they hadn’t taken him to St. Mungo’s, but to a normal hospital, then they wouldn’t have had to register Remus as a werewolf and they could have moved back to Puerto Rico. They could’ve found a little rancho with an empty chicken coop they could’ve turned into a safe place for Remus to transform, or even magically figured out an open space for the small wolf cub to run. But that was impossible once the doctor at St. Mungo’s identified the injury as a werewolf bite and referred them to the registry, where they required to submit the necessary paperwork before Remus could be released back into their custody. There were no Dark Creature Safety Centers (as the Department for Magical Security referred to the dank cells into which they threw in thousands of registered werewolves every 28 days) on the island and they couldn’t afford to fly Remus to Miami every month. So they stayed in Newark and drove into Elizabeth during every moon to drop off their son and pray to whatever semblance of a God was left that it would be better this time.  
  
    When Esperanza finally retreated into the bedroom, she let her fingers rest on her son’s shoulder briefly, then pulled away before he could berate her for treating him like a child.  
  
    Once she was gone, Remus and Gideon spread out more comfortably on the sofa now covered in new sheets and Remus’s pillow (Esperanza had rolled up a blanket for Remus to use instead). In a hurried whisper Gideon relayed what he’d been desperate to owl him about—disappearances, weird messages intercepted, rumors of meetings in Beacon Hill and North End. It sounded exciting to Remus and despite having grown aware that good people could do bad things, it seemed to him painfully obvious that they were on the right side and it would all be resolved soon. Dumbledore seemed larger than life and invincible.  
  
    Once they’d discussed the shadowy bit of Gideon’s summer they moved to the lighter subject of his young nephews. They were total opposites: Billy was a quiet boy who could play happily with a sock if you let him (although, knowing him, he’d take the opportunity to hang it off his junk; the boy was born an exhibitionist, Gideon insisted). Charlie, on the other hand, was always fucking screaming, either with joy or rage or toddler-specific mix of both. On top of everything else, his sister Molly had just had a new baby, but Remus was surprised to just be hearing about it. Gideon hadn’t mentioned her pregnancy at all in his letters or during the previous semester.  
  
    “Molly’s terrified, Remus. I mean, she was jittery about her pregnancies with Billy and Charlie because she wouldn’t be Molly if she wasn’t freaking out, but nothing like with baby Percy. I think she was scared to talk about the baby in public…” Gideon’s gaze was locked onto the hands on his lap, unusually anxious energy coming off of him in waves. He only spoke like when it was something he hadn’t already talked through with his twin, which happened rarely.  
  
    Gideon wouldn’t live to see his nephews grow up and would never meet his niece, who would most resemble her twin uncles. Remus liked to think that Gideon would have ensured that the Weasley brood were all well-versed in Muggle music by the time they were ten; he would have dropped in every so often to tell Arthur to watch the babies while he took his sister to indulge in pretentiousness at a play or a nice restaurant; he and Fabian would have planned a spectacular toast for Bill’s wedding and somehow would have pulled it off despite having drank their weight in Jameson. At Bill’s actual wedding, sitting between to a tent pole wrapped in flowers  and Dora, Remus will consider the lost possibilities tearfully and miss Gideon with an aching he hasn’t felt since the first class in which he taught Fred and George Weasley.  
  
    In 1976, Remus didn’t think as he reached out and took one of Gideon’s hands off his lap into his own. Gideon tightened his grip around Remus’ palms, but didn’t look up at him as he continued. “Molly doesn’t like to talk about what’s going on, but Arthur brings it up all the time at dinner. He works at the Ministry and he says there’s a lot of talk about…well, about bad blood, watered down blood, blood traitors.” He swallowed. “They hate babies the most. Babies that can’t help being Muggleborn or Squibs or whatever else the Death Eaters have decided deserved to die.” Gideon’s voice cracked on the last word and he squeezed his eyes tight.  
  
    Remus’s father didn’t mention any of this. He worked as a magical engineer, taking advantage of having a foot in both worlds to specialize in magical objects in the same position as himself. He must have heard the same whispers as Arthur; people said a lot of things in front of the hired help.  
  
    But: “Isn’t Arthur pureblood, too? Molly and her kids aren’t targets.” You aren’t the target, his brain murmured resentfully.  
  
    Gideon finally looked up, brown eyes big as saucers. Van Morrison sang a verse in Remus’s head, inexplicably. “They’ll be a target if they find out Fab and I’re in the Order.”  
  
    All Remus saw were Gideon’s wide eyes, even after he leaned forward to press his lips against his friend’s. Gideon’s mouth was soft, his movements careful and different from the man from the bicentennial. Gideon’s hand squeezed Remus’ painfully, but neither boy pulled away. The loud beating of Gideon’s heart pounded through Remus and he could smell something new settling over them, different from the smell that had overtaken him when he’d kissed the man from the bicentennial. Before he could stop himself, Remus dug his nose into the side of Gideon’s neck, who let out a nearly imperceptible gasp and unfurled himself under Remus’s tongue and hands.  
  
    “I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to them because of me,” Gideon whispered and Remus swallowed his fear.  
  
    They spent the next couple of days wandering through Remus’ neighborhood, shamelessly chainsmoking and carefully not touching. Gideon shot Remus small sly smiles and his attitude was much improved from the night before, having laid down his fears for Remus to see and dispel. The danger was far away; in Newark an uncommon breeze swept through Remus’s hometown blocks, where they chased down ice cream trucks like kids.  
  
    Gideon quickly charmed Remus’ mother through music, asking her questions about her favorite songs that she’d never thought to ask— how did you play a trumpet? what does quimbara mean? why couldn’t Gideon move his hips that way? Remus watched his mother laugh like she did when Tio Felix coaxed her into having a couple drinks.  
  
    “You know, Remus’ father would always show up to my house on Fridays, he knew my older cousins and brothers would be playing music. There was always something going on at the Luna house on Friday.” She spun Gideon around, her hand on his waist as she led him like a man would, gently urging him to swivel his hips more. “And you should have seen him! This big white boy, totally out of place, but _mijo_ , let me tell you, the boy could move!”  
  
    Remus could picture it; his mother could still occasionally pull Lyall to his feet at Luna get togethers to accompany her for a few dances, but he couldn’t conjure the image of his father smitten. He leaned against the windowsill, sipping his coffee and not daring to wonder if his mother was telling him something.  
  
    “Him and my primo Luis worked at a garage together, so they would show up after they closed up, bringing beer and soda for us girls.“ The song changed, the tempo slowed and Gideon continued to watch his feet even as Esperanza and he only swayed slowly in circles. “He brought me a flower once. I don’t know remember what it was, I don’t know much about flowers, but I do remember that after he walked away I laughed with my sister about it.”  
  
_Quiero volver a revirir la noche, porque la vieja luna volverá_  
  
    Later Gideon told Remus his mom had been kind of a heartbreaker, and, jokingly, that he hoped that Remus hadn’t picked that up from her. Remus’ stomach sank at the thought of Gideon comparing them to his parents. Too quickly the physical was melting into the emotional and he was confronted with the embarrassment at Gideon’s earnestness and his eagerness to please; he winced a little when Gideon chastely kissed the corner of his mouth before letting Remus get up to go back to his own bed. The sickly sweetness of it all made him feel guilty and ill— he couldn’t help but picture James, Sirius and Peter laughing at them.  
  
    He preferred pushing Gideon onto his back on the sofa and pressing into him with hurried, hungry, bruising kisses, twisting and contorting themselves until they lay spent and breathing heavily on top of not-so-new sheets. Remus allowed himself to briefly enjoy the rhythm of Gideon’s heart against his ear, the heat of his hands on Remus’ lower back, the sweaty scent of boy and sex that made the wolf growl. Then he pulled away to lay alone in his bed and try to fall asleep without thinking of—  
  
_Ella es quien sabe donde está mi amor, ella sabe si es que lo perdí_  
  
    Fucking typical, Remus thought to himself as he and Gideon caught the train at Penn Station into Manhattan. There was a kind, funny, willing guy in front of his nose and all Remus wanted to do was his strain his neck looking back at someone willing to risk everything Remus had for the sake of his ego. Gideon knocked his knuckles against Remus’, pulling him out of his thoughts.  
  
    “I can’t fuckin wait for you to hear Verlaine, Remus. You won’t believe it, I swear it’s like the smoothest pull of a joint, like the chill up your spine when someone touches you the right way.” Remus blushed but Gideon didn’t, unconcerned with who might overhear him.  
      
    Despite his reticence, Gideon’s joy started to seep into Remus and by the time they stood outside of CBGB’s they were both giddy. They’d been to shows in Boston and Cambridge, but neither had spent any significant amounts of time walking Boston’s more colorful streets and imagined themselves tough and daring as they climbed the stairs of the Bowery stop and into the humid, putrid night air. Remus knew Gideon still had a few cigarettes left, but he asked a man with a bushy mustache and wild, balding hair if he could bum one. The man acquiesced, hungrily taking Remus in. Gideon thanked him quickly, pulling his friend away by the elbow to light it somewhere else.  
  
    Remus wondered if maybe he was coming around to Gideon after all; the show of jealousy made Remus laugh. The cigarette smoke was heavy, grounding the two boys as they took in the scene in front of them: denim, women without bras in dirty t-shirts, sweat, patterned mini skirts, grey acrid smoke, men in heels, everyone in tight knots, unraveling only to reconvene in different orders. Finally, Gideon and Remus pushed inside, where a drunk man stumbled back and forth on a stage strumming strumming strumming, the drummer behind him writhing. A third man stood almost completely still, stoically playing bass.  
  
    “That’s not him, is it?“ Remus asked, raising an eyebrow.  After squinting for a moment, Gideon confidently told him it wasn’t. Remus wasn’t so sure, so he asked the bartender if Television was playing that night.  
  
    He stared at Remus with bored red eyes and shook his head. “Nah, they’re not playin right now, they’re recording.“ He said it with either disdain or respect, but he was too high to pick one, leaving it up to Remus instead.  
  
    Gideon pretended he wasn’t disappointed and ordered them two cheap beers. As the drummer’s tempo sped up the crowd shoved them harder against the bar, so they edged their way toward a wall that Gideon was too squeamish to lean against. Someone had written KILL DISCO in big letters that hovered above Remus’s head like a halo.  
  
    “This band kinda sucks,” Remus whisper-yelled into Gideon’s ear, lips accidentally brushing his earlobe.  
  
    “ _You_ suck!” Gideon yelled back, laughing. After another ten minutes someone threw a bottle at the stage and the guitarist used that as an excuse to end the torture.  
  
    Gideon quickly made friends with a couple seated at a nearby table who’d also come into the city from New Jersey but were unconcerned about the uninspired musicians. “Honestly,” the man, Simon, told them conspiratorially, “it’s worth the gamble. A few months ago I saw this band and it’s none of this jam band bullshit, just straight energy. If I never hear another fucking Led Zeppelin wanna be guitar solo it’ll be too fucking soon.”  
  
    Remus laughed along and made the occasional comment, but he left the bulk of the socializing to Gideon, who was able to smoothly slip into Muggle skin. He was much better at it than any of the other Marauders, who were always letting slip wizarding details by accident or staring too blatantly at common things like baseball caps. Gideon looked right at home at the bar, hands in his pockets, wand tucked neatly away and probably spelled to stay still. Remus looked away before he was caught staring and it was misinterpreted.  
  
    They accepted the invitation from the girlfriend, Jessie, to stop by another bar on 23rd where better bands might be playing. On their walk over Gideon and Simon maintained a lively discussion about something Remus had already lost track of, leaving he and Jessie to follow a few steps behind them. Remus accepted the cigarette Jessie offered him, which she’d already lit and had red traces of her lipstick. She wasn’t beautiful and her heavy eye makeup and bright red lipstick only served to accentuate her thin lips and eyes that bulged slightly, but she swept down the street with confidence that she could at least kick your ass.  
  
    She slipped her arm through Remus’s and flicked her cigarette in the direction of the two men walking in front of them. “So, you two…?“  
  
    His first instinct was, of course, to deny it. Being gay, being a werewolf, being broke… it never went away but he’d learned the magic of misdirection at Hogwarts and had managed to keep up the appearances of being just like everyone else. But after the drinks that Simon and Jessie had bought them, that invisibility cloak he pulled over himself felt tight around his growing bones, he wondered if on these long city blocks he was hidden enough to come clean. Jessie didn’t care who saw her and in CGBG’s he’d felt the eyes of more than one men, some who’d painted themselves as garishly as Jessie. He thought of Mindy in her little shorts, of the men in the Village happy to be recognized for who they were…  
  
    Remus nodded, still too nervous to speak it aloud. He studied Jessie out of his periphery, but she was still looking at Gideon. He realized what he’d said, what he’d admitted and felt like he’d still lied. The two of them weren’t … well, not really.  
  
    “Good job. I could eat him up. I love Irish boys, they’re so feisty.” Remus blushed and didn’t answer. The wolf stirred in his belly and growled.  
  
    The other bar was nondescript but inside the music rushed at them like lava and Remus felt it burning at his fingertips. This wasn’t the slow purr of the guitar he was used to hearing on the Stooge’s albums, nor the crooning pulled and torn from soul music. This was power, yelps and growls not intended to soothe or lull. Remus let himself get pulled into it, forgetting Gideon and their new friends, forgetting his limitations and reservations.  
  
_Well, you’re a loudmouth, baby_  
  
    Time blurred. When Gideon found Remus and pulled him out, he’d been elbowed in his jaw and had a split lip and a leer. The time Remus had spent in the crowd Gideon had spent drinking and he was happy to put up with anything as long as Remus kept gripping his biceps desperately. Words got lost and Gideon ended up pushed against the wall of the men’s bathroom, mewing desperately as Remus nipped at his neck and pawed at his pants.  
  
    There would be deep gaps in their memories, but both of them would remember the honey sticky taste of kissing in the dirty bathroom. They weren’t the type to get down and dirty in a public restroom, but a comfortable haziness swept over this point of the night.  
  
    Much, much later, Simon dropped them off in front Remus’s apartment, and what was left of the alcohol in their systems made them thank Simon and Jessie profusely, promising to see them soon. They tumbled out, limbs and hands still tangled. The car pulled away, but Remus wasn’t paying attention, his hands were digging into Gideon’s sides, his tongue parting the other boy’s lips, made brave by the drink and the late hour.  
  
    Something grabbed him from behind and he landed hard against the pavement, left elbow and right hand stinging. He recognized his father’s brown shoes and sprung up, fear and adrenaline burning through his tired limbs.  
  
    Lyall didn’t reach for Gideon, but the other boy stepped out of reach anyway, his big brown eyes looking from Lyall to Remus.  
  
    Father and son stared each other down for several long seconds. Remus still sensed the wolf pacing underneath his skin and it tensed its muscles, picking up the scent of anger and (strangely) fear coming from the older man.  
  
    “What the fuck is this, Remus? You stay out all night and I come home t’find… what? What the fuck is this?“  
  
    There were a lot of answers to Lyall Lupin’s question. This was a worried father confronting his gay son on an empty street. This was a young man beginning to learn that love could come in different forms and didn’t have to be all-consuming. This was two boys drunk on cheap beer, pretending they had all the time in the world to be two boys drunk on cheap beer. This was a werewolf baring his teeth at everything that had tried to tame it and succeeded. This was a tired man confronting the daily reality that his life did not resemble what he had pictured when he was his son’s age. This was the summer of 1976, a sweet breath of fresh air before, by one epidemic or another, the 1980s would take more than it gave.  
  
    “I’m gay,” was the only answer Remus had, at the time.  
  
    It was not the right answer for Lyall, who was not ready to hear it, who would never be ready to hear it. Instead of answering, he finally turned back to Gideon, who, to his credit, did not flinch.  
  
    “An’ who the fuck r’you? Get the fuck outta here!”  
  
    Gideon tried to meet Remus’ eyes, but Remus hadn’t looked away from his father, glare frozen onto Lyall’s furious face. He’d never seen Remus look so angry, even after thinking that he’d seen Remus’ full range of emotions that night.  
  
    “Gid, I think you should go.”  
  
    He would feel guilty for Apparating back to Roslindale, but Remus appreciated it. He’d try to explain why to Gideon months later, after their friendship had healed and they’d moved past the incident, but Gideon would always feel like a coward for choosing flight. He made a conscious effort to be braver, to be more confrontational, which, in 1981 when he and Fabian were faced with a large group of Death Eaters, proved to be an instinct toward martyrdom.  
  
    Remus didn’t want witnesses to the opening of a wound he’d been scratching at for months. The crack of Gideon’s Apparation left them finally alone, both breathing deeply despite their stillness.  
  
    Part of childhood is the moment when you decide you will never be like your parents. It’s an easy promise to make, one that seems obvious and easy to keep. It’s even easier when you think your father hates you, when you can almost smell the resentment coating his skin when he drives you to the dark cage where they chain your young arms and legs. But it was more than that, and both of them knew it. Lyall had tried to play catch with his son, he’d offered to buy his son a secondhand broom, tried to tempt his son with all the gory details of his exploits in the Non-Human Spirituous Apparations division of the Department of Magical Security. Instead Remus pulled away or acquiesced without joy, preferring to walk with his mother to the library or sit on the steps in front of their apartment, drawing.  
  
    Lyall remembered every rejection, bile rising in his throat, and he snarled: “I knew there was something wrong with you.”  
  
    Later, after Remus was gone, he would repeat those words to himself, but differently. He’d known, he’d seen, there must have been something he had done wrong, something he could have done to protect his son. Had a strange man (or worse, a familiar man) asked Remus without really asking if he could touch him? Who had twisted his beautiful baby boy into this unfamiliar shape?  
  
    In the movie version of Remus’s life it’s at this point that he explains to his father that there is nothing wrong with being gay and Lyall admits that he’s just worried about the life that Remus will lead as a gay Puerto-rican werewolf. They won’t hug, but Lyall will grasp his son’s shoulder firmly with a small, sad smile.  
  
    In the movie that would repeat over and over in Remus’s head, Remus explained nothing and Lyall filled the silence by announcing that his son isn’t a fucking faggot.  
  
    The words didn't make Remus flinch but they burrowed deep into his veins and he spit them back out as poison, hissing, “Well, sorry to break it to you, Dad, but your son definitely loves cock.”  
  
    The first and last time Lyall hit his son, he shattered Remus’s nose and any possibility of the confrontation ending well. The seed Fenrir Greyback planted in 1965 bore fruit after years of the two Lupin men watering it. This time Remus did not fall, stumbling back a few steps, holding his hands to his face and hissing in pain.  
  
    Lyall looked on at what he had sowed, wanting to explain, to heal his son in every way he needed. He took a step forward and Remus took two steps back, the eyes of a scared animal peering back him from behind his fingers.  
  
    “Don’t come near me!” His voice was that of a boy, no different from the voice in which he’d asked his father to show him how he carved the wooden figures Lyall collected on the windowsill of his bedroom.  
  
     The boy turned his back on the Seventh Ave apartment he’d grown up in and ran in the opposite direction. Lyall Lupin sat on the curb for a long time, looking down at his hands and wondering what he was going to tell Esperanza.  
  
    Remus didn’t have enough to cover the Knight bus fare to James’s place in Providence, but he had his wand and hopefully still looked clean-cut enough to get some sympathy from the bus driver. By the time he climbed on the bleeding had stopped, but the pain was making the world a little sideways. He told the driver in his most pitiful voice (which didn’t take a whole lot of acting) that he’d been mugged, but that he could cover the fare once they arrived in Providence. The driver didn’t look entirely convinced, but he let Remus on. There weren’t many passengers and none of them glanced at him as he found an empty seat in the back. He tried to curl up and sleep, but every bump of the bus sent sharp pain through his face, so instead he watched as they flashed through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, before finally arriving in sleepy Providence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quiero volver a revirir la noche, porque la vieja luna volverá / Ella es quien sabe donde está mi amor, ella sabe si es que lo perdí
> 
> I want to relive the night, because that old moon will return / She knows where to find my love, she knows if I've really lost him
> 
> [Vieja Luna](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn7gfo48zmQ), by Celia Cruz


	5. It's Gonna Take More Than Muscle Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1976: The Whomping Willow's legacy, part II
> 
> Where time hides all wounds.

Sirius learned his favorite bad habits from the Potters. In the Black household, where the house elves were out en masse by eight in the morning, it was unheard of to sleep until nine. One could never say they worked loudly, but they took no care in trying not to wake you as they went along, wiping surfaces, refilling decanters, erasing any trace of marks left on the furniture by angry fists, laundering, disappearing Sirius’ contraband and generally being a pain. It never occurred to Sirius until he lived at Hogwarts that he could sleep in, but he found that the best his body could do was lay awake and listen to the slow breathing of his friends. When he had to return to Grimmauld Place, he tried to at least relish the opportunity to throw things at the invading house elves until they scattered.

When he moved in with James he dislodged his regular sleeping habits by staying up until dawn with his best friend and drinking too much gin. (Ms. Potter’s favorite liquor and the easiest to refill with water). And yet, even the hands-off Potters wouldn’t allow their sons (biological and adopted) to stumble home reeking of stolen intoxicants more than once a week. On this particular Sunday morning Sirius was wide-awake after a riveting night of watching The Point with the Potters and forcing himself to engage in a lively debate with James about whether the director was a wizard.

“You’re going to tell me that some muggle thought up that ‘dog’? It’s pretty much a textbook Kneazle.” The fact that the Rockman was also clearly a recreation of Hagrid also went without saying, he thought, but Sirius was only partially invested in this conversation and didn’t want to make it longer than it needed to be.

“No, no, no, dude! It’s just a freakin’ metaphor about being a bigot, it’s got shit-all to do with magic,” James persisted. “The dog is all pointy ‘cause it goes with the moral!“

The debate was thankfully ended by Mr. Potter informing them knowingly that the line between an acid trip and magic was blurry and announcing pointedly that the parents would be going to bed. James and Sirius wandered up to the bedroom they shared and went to sleep with minimal collateral damage.

Six a.m. found Sirius in the kitchen, pretending he liked coffee enough to wake up early to make it. By getting up ahead of the rest of the household he'd avoided revealing that he was crap at making coffee. He averaged at least one batch of coffee grounds in the stovetop espresso maker per morning.

An unfamiliar movement caught his eye as he measured out the right amount of coffee over the sink. Putting down the funnel, he squinted through the curtains at the person perched on the curb in front of the house, spine curved into a painful shape.

A familiar shape.

The thought had barely congealed before he shot out of the kitchen and through the front door, thoughtlessly letting it slam shut behind him. Remus turned around and all Sirius could see was were the dry flakes of blood around his nose and a ripped collar. Remus made to stand but Sirius was kneeling in front of him before he could complete the movement so he plopped back down on the curb shakily.

Words dangled off Sirius’ tongue, but they all seemed too heavy or too light. He wanted to apologize for everything he’d done and everything he’d would do. He wanted to curse everyone that had led Remus to this moment of weakness, including and excluding himself. The right words were in his head somewhere. They were in the books Sirius had read to avoid looking his mother in the eye, in the hours of movies he watched in rapt silence at the Potters’. But the only plagiarized words that came to mind were Travis Bickle’s (who he’d gone to see three times, twice with James and once alone): _Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets._ It was and it wasn’t what he wanted to say. Was the street the narrow one-way of Grimmauld Place, or the one below their feet?

While Sirius tied the drama back to himself, Remus relished the reigning silence, the calm before the storm of explanations that would be due once the Potters saw him. He didn’t overthink Sirius’ speechlessness, which on any other occasion might have made him nervous.

By the time Sirius had worked things through in his mind his lips had twisted into a small, wry smile. “So, is there anyone’s ass I need to kick?” He tentatively placed his right palm on Remus’ bare knee, hoping that would translate into, Are you okay?

His answer was the way Remus’ face cracked open as he tried to smile back, the way the small movement gave way to a wince as his swollen nose got in the way. The tiny scars littered across his face were delicate fissures, shifting as Remus frowned, which allowed him to clench muscles that didn’t send a sharp pain through his face.

“No, Pads.” In the grey dawn light Remus’ eyes were dark pools, revealing depths it would be hard to emerge from. “Are you the only one up?” Sirius nodded.

Remus sank his face into his spindly knees, his forehead hot and sticky against Sirus’s hand. The weight was awkward and uncomfortable, but Sirius worried that any sudden movements would make the skittish boy pull away. Sirius felt the reverberations from mumbled words, but the sounds didn't become sentences.

The options here weren’t limitless. Sirius knew as well as anyone from a home where he was no longer welcome that no one hurts you like the ones who love you. Peter didn’t have the balls to get into a fistfight with Remus and it obviously it couldn’t have been James or Sirius. Remus had other friends in the periphery of his life, but no one that could put Remus into the situation he was in.

That left family.

None of them had met the Lupins, but after five years of off-handed comments they all knew that Remus felt he was a deep disappointment to his father by being his nerdy, quiet self. As someone who (occasionally!) voiced similar complaints about Remus’s (few!) personal failings, Sirius had always been sure that Remus was as blind to his father’s adoration as he was to every positive emotion anyone threw his way.

And no one who adored Remus would break him.

A thin, strangled groan slipped from Remus as he lifted his head a little, his eyes studying the concrete. “Fuck, I have to write to Gid…”

“Did he have anything to do with this?!“ Sirius exclaimed, as if he had any place to be indignant. Remus raised his gaze and blinked slowly at Sirius until the disdain made him look away. Remus pushed himself off to the curb, finally breaking their contact. As he brushed dirt off the back of his pants, he asked Sirius again if anyone else was awake.

“If you’re going to try and sneak away before James gets up, that’s fucked." He stood and tried to lean casually against the Potters’ green Corolla, but anger was already whipping painfully against the four chambers of his chest. ”He’s been worried about you.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “I’ve been _fine_.” He rubbed his eyes hard with the balls of his palms. “I think this might have been a bad idea… I should—”

“What, and go stay with your _boyfriend_ , Prewett?” Sirius sneered as they spun further and further apart like two identical magnets.

The way Remus flinched made Sirius twitchy and (yes) jealous, something he’d come to terms with after a long summer of James’s unsubtle prodding and secret gender-neutral discussions with Ms. Potter. It wasn’t fair, he’d decided, that he only figured it out after he’d already pushed Remus away. Now, to add insult to goddamn injury, some asshole who barely knew Remus was able to come along, play some Muggle music and win Remus over? Win Remus, who’d denied for three weeks that he had any idea what they were talking about when they’d told him they’d figured out why he missed class every month. The boy who had wrapped his arms around a big black dog in the nurse’s office and breathed in deeply, but who never thanked them out loud. Remus, who now stood in front of him, tired and angry and still grateful that Sirius gave him a reason to yell.

“Look, asshole...” Remus interrupted himself with a growl and ran his hands desperately through his curls. “Y’know what? Maybe I fucking should!”

“Oh yeah?” Sirius pushed himself off the car and into Remus’s face, his words clipping into a Brahmin accent he hated. “I’d think twice about that, Gideon didn’t do such a good job of stopping your father from kicking the shit out of you.”

He wanted so badly for Remus to throw him down and kick him in the ribs. He could tell Remus knew it and ravenous part of him wanted it, too, but, like always, Ms. Potter could sniff out a fight. When she opened the front door she drew their attention away and the moment was lost. Their bubbling rage simmered once again beneath the surface, waiting patiently, when no one's watching, to boil over.

“Remus, honey, is that you?”

The frenzy Remus hoped to avoid was upon them in seconds and Ms. Potter sent Sirius off with James to the store to speak to Remus privately.

When Remus sought refuge in Sirius after Ms. Potter's funeral, he’d confess that he’d immediately told Ms. Potter what had happened. He'd been sure that Ms. Potter would send him away, but he was tired of lying. He’d also known that the Potters would make sure he made it to Gid’s in Boston and while Molly would be wary, Gideon would let him stay. But, of course, Ms. Potter didn’t even blink and immediately told him he was welcome for as long as he needed and even offered to talk to Remus’s mother, if he wanted. Then, as she turned away to get a bed ready for him, she paused, as if thinking hard about what she was about to say. Ms. Potter looked at him with a serious mouth but smiling eyes and asked him to be patient with Sirius. “You’re good for each other.“

At that moment, Sirius, unaware that sixteen year olds are transparent, sat with arms crossed in the passenger seat of the Potters’ car, as James did a bad job of pretending he wasn’t elated to be driving.

“What do you think happened?“ James asked, not daring to take his eyes off the empty road, presumably in case a ghost car crossed in front of them.

It didn’t occur to Sirius that anything in Remus’s life could be private, not among the Marauders. “I’m pretty sure his dad hit him,” he muttered, annoyed that saying it out loud made him feel guilty for goading Remus.

“What?! Did he tell you that? Or are you assuming the worst, like you always do?” Unspoken: are you projecting your own familial instability onto Remus?

Spoken: “Fuck you, James. Why else would he be sitting outside your house at the buttcrack of dawn?“

They drove in silence, the air between them crackling with worry and teenage feelings. Pulling into the supermarket parking lot, James seemed to decide that honesty was the best policy and admitted that he’d thought Sirius had punched Remus.

“And don’t act all offended, Sirius.” James interrupted, shooting his best friend a sharp look as he pushed the transmission into park. “You never _mean_ it, but you’re always exploding and lashing out over nothing. It’s not like it was impossible, especially after everything that’s gone down since May.”

Sirius bit the inside of his mouth in the same spot he’d been biting since Bella had made an off-handed comment about hunting banshees in Scotland, how any day now they would lift the ban and wouldn’t it be _divine_ to be able to buy that moisturizer she liked without needing to pay with her first-born because of the illegal banshee marrow? Walburga (she wasn’t his fucking mother anymore) had tutted and told her niece that she didn’t trust any banshee marrow she didn’t extract herself, anyway.

He’d tried to punch Severus Snape for much less in fourth year, but even then he’d ended up the one sent to the nurse’s office. Here, with the entire solid-oak table filled with Blacks and Lestranges and Malfoys, Sirius knew he wouldn’t get far.

And yet.

“That’s horrible.” Even as he tried to thicken his tongue and bend his lips around the same vowels of his friends, his accent always floated up toward the upper crust at Grimmald Place. Around the table, eyes that looked like his blinked at him, as if they’d managed to forget he was in their midst. “That ban should be permanent.”

Sirius learned his worst bad habits from his mother. She’d placed her utensils down and wiped her lips with the thick cloth napkin, leaving a dark smudge that the house elves would rub their fingers raw getting out. Every movement was slow with swallowed violence, the tension obvious from her clenched jaw.

“Sirius, may I speak to you in the hall?”

Anything she was unwilling to do in front of the rest of the family couldn’t be good. They excused themselves and Walburga practically pushed him through the door.

He’d expected the slap, which burned but didn’t throw him back the way they had when he’d been smaller, frailer. He turned his eyes back to meet hers, both burning with embarrassment and loss.

“If you want to act like the beasts you care so much about, that is precisely how we will treat you, heir or not.” A thin sliver of dark dark hair had fallen into her eyes, but other than that she was in control. Without quite meaning to, Sirius always strove for the same control. He worked to absorb the rage into into every inch of his skin, hair and nails until there’s no separation. That’s what Walburga looked like in that moment—like a statute made of pure rage.

“They’re not _beasts_ ,” Sirius snarled, going for authoritative and instead landing on petulant. “They’re _people_!”

“So that’s what you’re learning at school?” she murmured, almost to herself, lips curling into a cruel smirk. “I remember a much…stricter curriculum when I was there.” She paused and looked past Sirius for a moment as if considering the chasm between then and now.

Lulled into thinking the worst was over, he didn’t catch the full extent of her disdain when she turned her gaze onto him. “But then again,” she continued, “I didn’t share a room with a werewolf.”

Immediately he plunged into a cold lake of fear, the goosebumps on his arms prickling in the cool air of the hall. Walburga was hungry for that flash of terror on his face, but he tried his best to school his face, even as blood pounded loudly in his ears. Her dark eyes searched his, glittering with mischief. She knew she’d won (she always did), but what was a win if you weren’t able to gloat? Sirius, as familiar with that instinct to go for the kill as much as any Black, forced himself to roll his eyes.

“You’d think I’d know if I lived with a werewolf. ” Her eyes flashed and Sirius thought she might sink her teeth into his throat after all. But the danger passed and small, humorless smile formed.

“Hm. You would think.“ She turned back toward the dining room and he considered walking in the opposite direction, down the long hall lined with portraits that spoke in sharp British accents and the occasional French. Portraits that pursed their lips at him, even now, murmuring about his long hair and his language.

Only the portrait at the very end of the hall, his great-great aunt Sybil, had spoken to him since he’d been sorted into Gryfinddor. “Darling,” she’d told him once in a conspiratorial tone. “Don’t be ridiculous, you are far from the first heir to stray a little, especially at your age. Simply because we do not advertise our adventures does not mean we do not _have_ them. After all, it’s the 19th century, not the middle ages!” He didn’t correct her.

She was not one of the more active portrait subjects, having been painted in her third age. She was seated comfortably on a sofa decorated with vases and flowers (in fact, the one Walburga kept in her office, that he and Regulus were not allowed to sit in), dressed in a deep red gown with her hair piled elaborately on her head. Sybil could be found leaned against one of the arms and tucked her foot underneath her large skirt. Beside her, forgotten, always lay a pair of long white gloves, as if she had ripped them off as soon as she’d arrived from whatever dazzling ball the painter had depicted her arriving from. Every plank of wood on the floor, every petal of the flowers in her hair, every facial expression was rendered realistically. Aunt Sybil described with a smirk how pleased she’d been to have someone as handsome as her French portraitist study her body with such an eye for detail.

“There is nothing like the seduction of a good painter. I recommend the experience wholeheartedly.” She waved her cigarette holder vaguely as she spoke, the thin thread of smoke delicately floating across her face and fading into the blurred darkness behind her.

Sirius always wondered why Walburga had placed his Aunt Sybil’s portrait at the entrance to their house, where guests waited until they were sent away or, occasionally, allowed into the sitting room. When SIrius was very young, he’d asked Walburga why Auntie Sybil talked so much. She always had something to say about his outfit before he was to leave, full of unsolicited advice that prickled Sirius’s arrogance. Walburga had been sitting at her desk in front of one of the large windows in her office, drafting a letter. She didn’t look up as she explained that Sybil had always been that way, since she and Aunt Druella were girls. It was her way of judging you, watching how you reacted. “It’s best not to let her get to you,” Walburga continued in a tone that Sirius could not recognize as a child, “that is her greatest pleasure, raising heckles.”

“She’s irritating,” Sirius responded with a moue, back straight and arms crossed, ever the little dark prince.

“Enough, Sirius, that is not how men speak and you are almost a man.” She raised a single eyebrow, then relented before her oldest son. She stared back down at her letters, writing feverishly but speaking slowly. Sirius must never disrespect Sybil, she was the closest thing he had a to a grandmere; she had raised her and Aunt Druella after their parents had passed away.

“We certainly did not agree on everything, but you must always respect your history. Her blood runs through you and Regulus, one way or another. Blood will always win out." As a small boy, Sirius imagined Auntie Sybil’s portrait offering up bloody wrists for him to drink from. The thought had made him shiver.

Though he’d never met her, Sybil fed Sirius something stronger than blood. Whenever his parents made him so angry he gnawed at his skin until it was raw, Sybil traveled from portrait to portrait until she pushed her way into one of the posters he kept above his bed. She would eye the motorcycle suspiciously, but refused to ask what it was or even acknowledge it. Instead, she handed him a fuller history that his mother had made him promise to cherish, of Blacks that swaggered across oceans, Blacks with undistinguished stories, Blacks that flourished despite adversity and Blacks that perished without having accomplished a single thing.

She often mentioned in passing her roguish, young nephew, who had spent most of his nine lives before he settled down in international banking. “He was never going to be a politician or a particularly good aristocrat. He liked his autonomy and I think working with those goblins to set up that bank made him feel useful.“ When he finally met his Uncle Alphard, he was nothing like the young, dashing entrepreneur of Aunt Sybil’s stories, but he smiled and shook Sirius’s hand like an adult, which immediately won Sirius over despite what he felt was false advertising.

But there were many miles between the boy that had walked down these halls like he owned them and the man he was teetering into becoming. Thinking of Sybil, thinking of Alphard…

Alphard lived in Boston, not in Beacon Hill with the rest of the Blacks, but in Brookline, next to a kosher deli. His door, as he made clear every time Sirius saw him, was always open.

When Sirius told James about his last evening at Grimmauld Place, he described how he immediately turned away from his history, his house, his inheritance.

The truth is that Sirius Black walked back into the dining room, tail between his legs. There was no coming back if he left, no matter what Sybil’s portrait said about straying from the path. No one acknowledged him as he took his place to the left of his father. Orion ate daintily, repeatedly putting down his knife and fork to pat at the lips that both his sons inherited.

The truth is that Sirius Black snuck out of his childhood home through the backdoor to avoid Aunt Sybil’s even gaze. He shouldered the beat up green knapsack he’d borrowed from James to piss off his father, which contained the essentials: seven books he could not do without and three his father would immediately miss from the library but not dare to reclaim (that would mean admitting ownership). One book would go missing in 1979, setting off a series of bad judgments, drunken decisions and—

The truth is, Sirius Black didn’t believe in privacy unless it’s his own. He invented a new narrative as he flew through the suffocating July air on his way to Providence and made a point to elaborate on the details he wanted James to focus on—like the fact that Walburga knew about Remus.

“We should warn Moony,” James responded straight away, sitting ramrod straight at the edge of his bed. “We should tell Dumbledore. Who could have told?“

Sirius studied his best friend in disbelief. Who else? “Sniv—” The look James shot him made him pause and take in a sharp breath. “Snape. Obviously.”

James shook his head and slipped his glasses off the bridge of his nose, wiping them distractedly with the sleeve of his robe. “Couldn’t be. Dumbledore made him promise.”

Before May 1976, every Marauder would have agreed that promises were sacred. If you made a promise, a real promise, there was no way to retreat from that oath. But at some point during the morning that followed that full moon, as Sirius promised over and over again to never, ever do anything like that again, the word lost its meaning. With the lone exception of James, who never hesitated to believe that Sirius would really never, ever do anything like that again. The pure, single-minded faith James had in him could make Sirius soar, as long as he managed to forget that James believed equally in Severus Snape. “Then who else could it be?” Sirius snapped back, annoyed that he’d lost Severus Snape as his favorite scapegoat.

Neither James nor Sirius would ever find out how Remus’s tightly held secret made its way across the Charles River and onto Walburga Black’s lap. They weren’t privy to Hogwarts’ inner workings. While the Hogwarts staff maintained a stolid front for the students, they held diverse views on the world and its politics. No one would dare contradict Dumbledore in public for fear of retaliation, but the ship was not as tight as generally assumed. 

In the end, James sent Dumbledore an owl and told Sirius that he would handle breaking the news to Remus about what Walburga had said. While Sirius was probably due for a black eye, James liked to mete out the punishments to ensure they were well-deserved. After a summer of stewing, he couldn’t be sure how Remus would react to more bad news.

The two boys completed their errand in near silence. Finally, as they climbed back into the car to return to James’ house, Sirius found his voice.

“He has to forgive me eventually, right?”

James wanted with every fiber of his being to comfort his best friend. For all his flaws, he was James’ favorite person and he wanted to believe that everything work out for him. But it was too late to unsee his capacity for cruelty. Thanks to long, unshared letters to Lily Evans, James realized that part of things Working Out for Sirius Black meant helping him be better. Maybe James was no better judge of what ‘better’ was than Sirius, but he took Lily’s consistent responses as evidence that he might be skirting the edges of ‘decency.’

“Put on your seatbelt, Pads, and let’s find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♪ These Days - Ane Brun  
> ♪ The Waiting - Angel Olsen  
> ♪ More Than Muscle - Luke Temple  
> ♪ Emotions & Math - Margaret Glaspy


	6. Lone Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1976, The Whomping Willow's legacy, part III
> 
> Where James reminds Remus no man is an island and Remus reminds James that he's a virgin.

The hummingbird feeder swung listlessly on James’ back patio, the sound of cars and a neighbor’s radio drowning out the chirps or buzzing from the garden.

Remus’ fingers gripped the ballpoint pen expertly, scribbling quickly into a notebook. Sirius carefully perched a step up from the where Remus sat. He leaned forward to hug his legs, which served the dual purpose of allowing his to peek over Remus’s right arm while simultaneously making him seem smaller. His shoulder brushed against Remus’ upper arm. Remus didn’t cover up the paper like Sirius expected.

_Gid,_

_Just so you don’t try writing to my parents’ house, I’m at James’. Don’t feel bad, I know you feel guilty. This had to happen eventually._

_-R._

Sirius bit down on that same familiar, fleshy part of his cheek. It had to happen eventually, but did it have to happen with fucking _Prewett_?

No one but Ms. Potter had had the courage so far to ask Remus exactly what had happened to make him leave home. Once was more than enough to explain it, so Remus found he was happy to pretend there were no answers to give.

As Sirius pulled back, Remus felt a phantom tingle where the other boy had been leaning against him. On this third morning of waking up in the Potters’ second guest bedroom where the smell of bacon had replaced the lingering aroma of fried oil, Remus finally decided denial was not working. He wasn’t home and he didn’t hate Sirius Black.

Do not mistaken human weakness for forgiveness. Remus Lupin did not forgive Sirius Black and deep deep down, underneath cracked ribs that had healed many times over, he was afraid (glad?) that he never would. There was a trust that had been shattered by Sirius’s callous sharing of Remus’ Achilles heel. And yet, Remus found that he could live without that trust. He didn’t have to trust Sirius for any and each accidental touch to make Remus clench his jaw to avoid launching himself at the other boy.

Jaw tight and painful, Remus pushed off the stairs and walked back into the house toward the small sun room where the Potters kept their two owls. The floor was littered with droppings but Ms. Potter admitted that she felt too bad about keeping the owls in cages.

The first time Remus had seen the floor of that sun room, he’d been thrown off and disgusted. In so many other ways the Potters’ home was nicer than his apartment—they had a couch that didn’t sink in suspiciously in the middle and that wasn’t covered in a sheet to keep it clean, there were more bedrooms than they needed, a bathtub with feet that Remus had thought only existed as movie props. But _damn_ , didn’t Ms. Potter know how to use a mop? At the time Remus hadn’t been relying on their hospitality for room and board, so he hadn’t felt guilty about the passing thought.

Now the discolored floorboards jolted him, as he was seeing them for the first time. He wasn’t home and there would be no relief from that putrid odor.

Remus tied his letter to the larger owl’s leg and opened one of the windows to let the bird through. It escaped with an sharp squawk.

The response came hours later when James, Sirius and Remus were playing cards:

_Remus,_

_I’m so sorry, I never would have come if I thought this would have happened. I would come down to Providence if Mols would let me but she freaked out when I came home early and I guess I should have thought to change my shirt but that was the last thing i was thinking about but there was blood or something on it from that guy who fell into me at Mother’s. I told her that nothing happened but she knows me and she thinks I’m lying about that instead of about your dad._

_I told Fab who says to tell you chin up and he’s sending a new product from the shop that he thinks you all will like. He doesn’t really get it but he’s sorry._

_Have you talked to your parents? Do you think you’ll head home soon?_

_Let me know if you need anything._

_Best,  
Gideon_

Remus pocketed the letter and small package rather than opening it in front of his friends. A year earlier James and Sirius would have goaded Remus into sharing the correspondence and, to be fair, Remus probably would’ve let them. Now they shared a loaded look but said nothing. James reshuffled the deck and dealt.

Gideon had scribbled out a word before _Best_ that Remus desperately hoped wasn’t _Love_. Just reading the letter later in his bed made his gut drop and his chest tighten painfully, and not out of affection. Gideon was so fucking earnest and so clearly under the wrong impression that he had any fucking clue what Remus was going through. Molly had greeted Gideon’s coming out with a shrug of her shoulders and an assurance that she not only did not care but didn’t have any time to have an uplifting conversation with him about it, could he go to the store for more diapers? Remus needed a lot of things, but nothing that he could get from Gideon and his perfect fucking family.

A part of him wanted to hand over the package to James still wrapped, but it felt insensitive, even if Gideon would never know. Plus, what if it was a gay toy? (Not that Remus could imagine what a gay toy would be, but he didn’t want to risk it.)

It turned out to be a mask that molded to your face and could be shaped by hand. Remus absentmindedly slimmed the mask’s lips, narrowed the nose, sharpened the chin… He looked down at the light-skinned mask in his hands and decided he would make a better gift for James and Sirius anyway.

When he handed James the mask, Remus had already torn up the letter and thrown it away. The last thing he needed was either Sirius or James finding out what had happened with Gideon. The weight of James’s pity was heavy enough as it was.

“Sweet! This’ll be so much easier than Polyjuice Potion…” James peeked at Remus from over his thin frames, pausing on his next words. Remus, who hadn’t felt magnanimous in at least a week, blinked at him and raised an eyebrow, even as he knew what James wanted to ask.

“So. Was this a gift?” Remus nodded and shrugged, digging his hands into his back pockets. 

“Yeah, Fabian Prewett sent it. Well, Gid sent it, but I guess Fab’s working at some kinda testing site where he’s got access to this kind of shit.” A smirk snuck onto his face. “Guess our reputation precedes us.”

James’ expression shifted and the smirk disappeared. There was where James was supposed to grin and begin to excitedly discuss his next genius idea for spelling all the Ravenclaw’s books shut or making all the meatloaf taste like pumpkin pie. Instead, his lips were pursed as though he were swallowing a bitter pill—one he would no doubt share with Remus.

“Have you, uh,” he started, then paused to rub his head through his black nest of hair. “Does Gideon… is he …?”

When Jessie had asked him in Manhattan if he and Gideon were together, the answer hadn’t slipped easily off his lips, but he’d known there would be few, if any, consequences, whatever he told her. He knew he’d probably never see her again and since she’d already some idea of their inclinations it wasn’t likely she’d lash out. But here, even though he’d already come out to his friends somewhat painlessly, admitting to being in an actual relationship with a man felt different, more real. In the abstract it was easy for James, Peter and Sirius to accept their outcast friend was simply even more abnormal, but when it could be seen and heard and felt, that acceptance might slip away like so much sand on the shore.

It might’ve been easier to just tell James that nothing was going on, which was partially true if only because Remus wished it had stayed that way. But despite all his discomfort with being the object of Gideon’s affections, he knew he’d chosen to leap over that invisible line every time he’d kissed Gideon. And the boy, for all that he made Remus cringe with his eager and open feelings, was his friend and deserved better than Remus’ silence.

“Look, it’s not like you and Lily,” Remus blurted, already feeling the blush rise in his neck. “I mean, maybe, but I’m definitely not you in this story, just to be clear.” James frowned and Remus knew that hadn’t been the right way to begin. 

“We just fooled around a little, we’re not a couple or anything.“ It sounded defensive even to his own ears, but it was as simply as Remus could lay it out. 

James’ hands shot up along with his eyebrows. “Shit, that’s not what I was asking! I mean, cool, I guess, congrats, who would’ve thought that you’d be the first to— not that I think you guys… not that I really know how that would all … Fuck.” Both of them looked at each other like they wished the other had had the decency to walk away from this conversation instead of painfully trodding through it.

“Uh,” Remus began, “then what’re you asking?”

Without looking Remus in the eye, James answered, “Well, if Gideon knows about your furry little problem. Since it seemed like you guys had gotten pretty close.”

Remus was so relieved that he just barked a laugh. Why couldn’t James have just _asked_ that, then?! It would have saved them both from learning a little too much about what the other thought of him. “Fuck no.”

Strangely enough James looked disappointed. Had he been hoping that Remus and Gideon were boyfriends so that Remus would stop being the Marauder’s pet project? What, so that James would have more time to do what? Get rejected endlessly by Lily? Remus was formulating an angry response when James interrupted.

“Look, man, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Sirius’ mom knows. About the… furry problem.”

How could she possibly know? Remus didn’t even think she knew who he was. And how did James know that she knew… He brain flew through the different possibilities until landing on the most obvious: Sirius fucking Black.

“How? Why?!” He turned away from James, gripping the back of his neck with both hands. “Hasn’t he fucking done enough?” And just yesterday Sirius had had the fucking audacity to sit next to him and make conversation like he hadn’t shattered their friendship once again. And then kept it from him all week!

“We don’t know. She told Sirius, she threatened him with it. It’s, uh, it’s why he left, I think. He hasn’t really said that to me directly but I think that’s what finally made him do it.” Remus didn’t turn back to face James. He didn’t know whether to believe what James was telling him, but he wasn’t ready for James to know that. Especially if one look at James’ open face would tell Remus whether James believed it himself.

James continued: “We wrote to Dumbledore to tell him. I figured that he can stop her if she tries anything.”

A dry, ragged laugh spilled from Remus’ lips and he finally turned around. James wasn’t any younger than Remus, but he still believed in fairy tales. If a woman like Walburga Black wanted to hurt someone like Remus, there wouldn’t be anything Dumbledore could do to stop it.

Remus searched his friend’s face, trying to guess at whether James was just covering for that son of bitch or… what? That Pomfrey had told Sirius’ mom? Who else…

James’ eyebrows furrowed as Remus entire body curled into itself with rage. “I’m gonna fuckin’ _destroy_ Severus…“

“Hey, dude, let’s just take a sec here, okay?“ James could practically feel his raised hackles when he put a hand on his right shoulder, but Remus was going to go down a path usually reserved for Sirius if James didn’t nip that train of thought in the bud. “Dumbledore talked to him and told us that you didn’t have to worry about him talking. I don’t think—”

Throwing off James’ hand, Remus took several steps back, as if his naiveté was contagious. “Jesus fuckin Christ, if you bring up Dumbledore one more goddam time I am going to lose — my — shit.” James let him gather his breath, just staring him with his calm brown eyes. Fuck James. “He’s not Superman, James. He’s just the headmaster at some private magic school in some corner of Cambridge. He ain’t gonna protect us from shit.”

Not that Remus expected it from him, not the way that James and the others did. Even a vague study of history showed that old white men weren’t riding in on white horses to help people like Remus, be those people werewolves, homos or brown men. Even Dumbledore helping Remus get into Hogwarts, even with all the extra attention and leeway, Remus saw through those power games. He owed Dumbledore everything, and one day he would come and collect.

It was like Remus’ father always said

The thought dowsed Remus in cold water and his flesh prickled with goosebumps. His father, who believed that anything done right you did yourself, and that there was nothing worse than debt.

He deflated and looked at James again, who waited to see if Remus was going to explode again and then gave him a slow, small smile. “Well, maybe Dumbledore can’t do it alone, but the Marauders have it more than covered.” It was corny and typically overconfident, betrayed only by how James’ smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Right?”

If Remus pushed hard enough for long enough, he might end up facing his father’s face in the mirror. So he chose to sigh and agree: “Right.”


	7. Ordinary Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1977: Peter Pettigrew
> 
> Where the eyes are the windows to the soul and Peter's have narrowed to slits.
> 
> cw: mentions of partner abuse and dv

Remus was capable of hiding from Sirius and James when it was necessary, but Peter had his Animangus form’s knack of sniffing out what was hidden. To this end, Peter walked from Hogwarts to Remus’ preferred cafe, unconcerned that he would run into anyone he knew. Most of the other students thought leaving Hogwarts was unnecessary. Everything they needed was on its expansive campus and traipsing into Central Square was just damn inadvisable. Peter didn’t fit in anymore than they did in Central Square, but at least he knew how to burrow his hands into his pockets and pretend he was back in Brooklyn.

Finally he arrived at Andala, the cafe settled comfortably into the small corner of a brick apartment building, the customers seated on its outdoor patio sheltered by vines. Peter bypassed entering the cafe, as he could smell the mint smoke that would almost certainly belong to Remus. Sure enough, Peter found him sharing a hookah with Lily, whose nose was deep in a thick, magical tome.

“Hey, Pete,” Remus greeted, smoke spilling from his lips in such a way that Peter was reminded of the Care of Magical Creatures exam he was not preparing for. He plopped down heavily between Lily and Remus with a nod in Remus’s direction. Lily waved distractedly, then reached across him to take the hose back from Remus. She drew the silver smoke in, the hookah bubbling gently on the table in front of Peter. He shook his head when Lily offered him a turn. He was already getting black lung as it was with how desperately Remus and Sirius smoked. Peter still held onto the stubborn hope that this would be his year, the year he made the Quidditch team.

As a Sixth Year this fall was his last chance to show everyone that he was more than a stocky boy trailing after his more accomplished friends. That joining the Quidditch team would state this more clearly than not doing so wasn’t something that occurred to Peter at the time. He tried not to think about it too deeply at all, focusing instead on honing his skills and reviewing playbooks he charmed to look like schoolbooks. To probe at his feelings about not making the Quidditch team five times in a row might result in an expression of emotion to the other Marauders and there were only so many times Peter could stand to see James’ inability to believably fake enthusiasm or hear Remus’s direct dismissals. And if he heard Sirius make that snide snort again Peter would (definitely) deck him.

The time Peter spent training that spring opened him up to a solitude he’d never previously appreciated. At home, a raucous family made up of parents who worked underneath their apartment, two sisters and a crotchety grandfather hadn’t left the middle son with much introspective time. To a certain extent, Peter had learned to avoid loneliness at all costs, associating time spent alone with being boring and being boring was a sin too grievous to be borne in this era of bared skin, glitter, eyeliner and teased hair. He’d assumed that being alone would reveal his most guarded truth, that he was uninteresting and his thoughts had no value until validated by James or Remus (something Marlene McKinnon had told him scathingly in fourth year after two weeks of failing to hold Peter’s attention long enough to keep their plant alive in Herbology).

But it turned out that Peter had no trouble enjoying his own company. When he trained alone he was able to focus only on the movements of his own body, not worrying about mimicking James or whether Sirius would laugh at him. He would land on shaky legs, soaked from sweat and fog, but with a grin he’d maintain as he greeted the others who got up early enough to share in the doubtful joy of an early morning shower.

It was leaving the Quidditch changing rooms one morning that he ran into Dorcas Meadowes, who was still fiddling with her damp hair distractedly.

Usually under these circumstances Peter chose between one of three options: energetically friendly, fiendishly charming or mysteriously stoic. While he made this choice subtly when around one of his friends, they might have been surprised to see him so accurately regurgitate their mannerisms for strangers.

Before he could commit to an option, a thought intervened. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but Peter couldn’t imagine Sirius wondering whether he should act like Peter to convince a chick to like him (even if it might help him a bit on that front). In fact, Peter thought it was unlikely that Sirius ever looked past his own dick long enough to consider the possibility of other people having worth aside from their proximity to him. James didn’t help things, his unwavering support of his best friend made Sirius think he could do no wrong.

Lately, all Peter could notice were the careful ways he’d folded his resentment into tight paper swans, especially when it came to his best friends. Especially when it came to Sirius.

To the point where he was thinking about Sirius Black instead of the babe in front of him. Peter pushed his gently simmering rage into the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach and threw his three options into the metaphoric trash can. A tiny voice in his head that sounded like Remus wondered thoughtfully whether it was a metaphor before Peter interrupted and addressed Dorcas. “Hey, aren’t you cold in just that sweater? The snow only just melted!”

It occurs to Peter much, much later, when he spends his first three years as rat full-time and has more time for introspection than is healthy, that he might have been a kind man if the Marauders had let him. Instead, he reasons as he breaks through a plastic trash bag with his teeth, between James and Sirius the only models for acceptable behavior were arrogance, disdain for others and a deeply instilled sense of entitlement. One might believe from the outside that Remus and his humble background softened and counterbalanced the sharp edge of privilege Sirius and James wielded against the world, but from the inner sanctum it was clear that Remus was as hungry and hard as they were, albeit differently. Maybe it was the wolf, maybe it was that he grew up on different streets, but Remus taught Peter the most important lesson of all: for all your intelligence, for all your hard work, respect is only maintained through fear of that single, final moment of violence. Snivellus learned that lesson time and time again after— after—

Peter was smarter than the others recognized. He only had to learn that lesson once and even that was by watching a master at work.

Even as a rat, Peter will allow himself to feel triumphant through the thick haze of hunger, fear and grief. He’d made it. He was alive and free and powerful enough to bring wizards like Sirius Black and James—

It’s at this point in his reminiscing that Peter will the draw the rat brain forward and try to forget to justify his choices.

But is Peter wrong, if you consider a different definition of success? Who thought of him when he was a shadow behind his friends’ personalities? For fourteen years history repackages Peter Pettigrew as a a martyr, a human sacrifice to the end of the bloody, secret war against Voldemort. In 1993 he is at once a hero of the war as well as the single obsession of Sirius Black—someone who had never considered him an equal, much less a threat. As Sirius rots away in Azkaban, Peter relishes in knowing Sirius will recognize him as a superior.

Before he spends a lifetime as a rat, before Dumbledore sends a phoenix to interrupt a Friday Night Party at their Allston apartment to tell them that James’ parents are dead, before Peter tries cocaine and it distill his endless panic into a sublime and single-minded desire to survive… in that sepia-colored past Peter was relentlessly kind to Dorcas Meadowes and wondered achingly if he could love her one day.

This was the reason Peter hunted down Remus at Andala. When Remus asked him what’s up, Peter looked uncertainly at Lily, who was probably only pretending to still be reading. Remus followed his gaze then sucked his teeth impatiently, but stood, slipping a cigarette out of his pack and into his mouth. “I’m gonna go smoke, Lils.” She didn’t glance up as the two boys left her on the patio and crossed the street to perch on the steps of a nearby church.

As they walked Peter gathered his thoughts, wondering whether to start with the fact Dorcas was black, kind of like Remus, to score some points before asking for advice head on. But before he could get anything out, Remus draped himself across the steps and told Peter that he had until he finished the cigarette to get out what he needed to say.

In a rush, Peter told Remus about taking Dorcas to the Brattle to see Taxi Driver, about abruptly kissing her during the scene where Bickle takes his own date to see a porno, about Dorcas letting him, about taking off his leather gloves to hold her soft hand as they walked back to campus.

Before Peter became cruel to Dorcas between shows of kindness, forcing her to burrow her fear so deeply that she forgot whether she was afraid of losing Peter or afraid of never losing him, before all that, Peter took Remus’s advice. Advice Remus was not qualified to give at sixteen, barely a year into accepting he was a flaming queer. Even so, Peter accepted it with the same breathless gratitude of any loyal disciple, because he had not yet tasted betrayal.

So he was kind to Dorcas, but not too kind. Thoughtful, but not too thoughtful. “You don’t wanna freak her out, man,” Remus concluded, flicking his butt at the door of the church they were still parked in front of.

If Dorcas had known, she might have sought out a timeturner to go back to that moment and tell Remus to shut the fuck up. If Dorcas had been alive in 1981, she might have gripped Remus by the shoulders and told him in no uncertain terms what Peter Pettigrew was capable of.

Even heroes shelter sin. During Order meetings Lily will take in Dorcas’s sunglasses in the Boston cloudy winter weather, but stay silent. What happens between a man and a woman is private. James never notices.

It’s strange how war eclipses those intimate battles.


	8. We Have Five Years Left to Cry In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1945 / 1977: Sirius' inheritance, part I
> 
> Where the Black line works to do better and, arguably, fails.

No one spared much thought for the friendship between Irma and Walburga Black, even in the swarm of gossip that is Hogwarts. There were the occasional classroom murmurs and jokes, but neither of them were popular or interesting enough to warrant real discussion. They were assigned together in Potions by a young Horace Slughorn, who eagerly (and correctly) identified them as compatible assets. It was clear from early on that Irma’s strength was in deciphering and absorbing complicated texts and while Walburga was no fool, she harnessed her intelligence primarily for mischief, as long as it had the dual purpose of advancing her own ambitions. By 1943, however, the war had oozed into every crevice of daily life and left Walburga with no energy for pranks, leaving her vulnerable to Irma’s practical schemes.

Unlike her sons, Walburga evaded the war efforts and did not dwell on moral quandaries— why would she? This was her moment, a time she had never imagined would arrive. Just as muggle American women replaced the soldiers fighting across two oceans, witches were also looking further than the empty space on their ring finger. Enough pureblood wizards in Boston had enlisted at the Ministry’s request, leaving small holes for clever witches like Walburga and Irma to elbow through. Walburga, like a good Black, didn’t believe in getting involved with Muggle politics, but as the war wore slowly on and rationing and black outs became part of everyday life, Irma began to push. In the end, Walburga couldn’t turn down an opportunity to show off.

“Think of how much more we could grow in the Victory gardens if we lent a hand.” Walburga didn’t like the thought of gardening and told Irma as much. The skin on Walburga’s hands was so white as to be nearly translucent, the blue veins on the back of her hands and inside her wrists bulging obscenely in the mornings or during the winter. Irma’s hands were more suited to that sort of work, her nails trimmed short and her fingers round and slightly bulbous. Walburga didn’t go so far as to tell Irma this, but the way she stared pointedly at the palms Irma had pressed against the table said it all.

“You’ll die along with the rest of us if the Germans make it across the Atlantic.” Irma’s hands retreated back under the table.

“I’d like to see them _try_ ,” Walburga scoffed, but she still converted a small patch of her family’s courtyard into a Wizards-Only Victory garden. In effect only purebloods were invited to harvest from it, but the space allowed Irma and Walburga to experiment and tweak different charms and potions to extended the season for harvesting beets, carrots and broccoli into nearly December. Irma then exported their successes into other Victory gardens, both wizarding and muggle. Walburga, despite Irma’s multiple invitations, never joined her on those excursions, but listened patiently to Irma’s stories of entire families (or what were left of them) arriving at the gardens after Sunday mass to tend to shared plots, of the hummed tunes and the invented duets during the breaks they took while the sun was highest in the sky. Mémère Sybil, who sometimes joined them during the lunch they ate exclusively at Walburga’s home, asked questions and politely prodded Irma for more details on the different charms they were developing, but Walburga typically left the explanations to Irma, pretending to focus solely the book in her lap or on the birds perched just behind Irma’s head. This scene replayed for months on end, even as the first caustic winter winds drove them indoors and Walburga was forced to feign disinterest differently.

As the Black sheep, Sirius would take for granted that he was just _different_ from his parents. It was inconceivable to a teenage Sirius that Orion Black had ever sulked in his room—even as he grew up practically breathing his father’s thick sullen moods—and that Walburga had ever strayed. Sybil’s portrait wasted many hours dropping hints, but it was the Black way to keep tripping over the same mistakes.

In 1945 Mémère Sybil gathered her periwinkle skirts around her as she perched onto one of the lawn chairs next to Irma—now that it was summer at last and she had long-since perfected her mosquito repellant—and announced that a very special guest was coming to visit. Irma had been in the middle of trying to convince Walburga that they could (probably!) maintain Discedo Solis for long enough to sustain fruit trees from warmer climates. She closed her mouth slowly and politely waited for Mémère Sybil to continue even as she recognized the secondary message behind the interruption: this guest is more important than you are. 

Mémère Sybil had long since lost patience with Irma and Walburga’s projects and Irma had sensed a growing testiness in their exchanges. Irma had even gone as far as to suggest to Walburga that she drop by less often, maybe focus on distributing their successes rather than testing new tactics in at Walburga’s home. Irma had assumed Walburga, who rarely opposed her Mémère, would agree to the concession. To Irma’s surprise Walburga had brushed off the suggestion, telling her friend that she would not had Mémère Sybil deciding the company she kept. That should have been the first sign that there was more under the surface of Mémère Sybil’s new attitude.

Mémère Sybil began dropping hints about her nephew Alphard since Yuletide, along with ostensibly off-handed comments about how Walburga should consider her future now that she was well out of Hogwarts. Wasn’t she tired of draping herself across Sybil’s chairs and sofas? (Walburga had never _draped_ in her life.) Didn’t she get lonely, reading all that small print with her scholarly school friend? (Wasn’t that the whole point of friends, to keep away the loneliness?) Couldn’t she use a little trip, get away from the dreary news that drifted in from the ocean on the morning mist?

That was as much as Walburga could handle. “Oh, Mémère!” she’d exclaim and throw up her hands. “Does everything suddenly cease to exist when one is no longer staring right at it?” Mémère Sybil would gaze steadily at her until she regained her composure once more and reworded her reproach with banalities. “I’m perfectly happy here in Boston, Mémère. . .”

Mémère Sybil broke the cycle, deciding at last that Walburga didn’t know what was best for her. What girl does? Mémère Sybil liked Irma well enough; she was a clever girl to say the least and always very respectful. But she was also obtuse and Sybil saw the risk of the young woman dragging Walburga down with her. Mémère Sybil was many decades older than both girls and she had seen her fair share of maiden aunts. That didn’t suit Walburga, as much as she seemed willing to settle into her comfortable nest and blink owlishly at her unperceptive friend. Druella had long since fled the house in search for shinier objects and it was about time Walburga did the same.

Alphard arrived on uncommonly cool morning in July, the morning’s rain not yet converted to sticky humidity. “My dear Alphard—Irma, dear, have you met my darling nephew?— he is departing quite soon for Mexico.” Walburga and Irma exchanged a quick glance that Mémère Sybil ignored. Since when did Mémère Sybil refer to traveling south of the Carolinas without a sniff of derision? She sounded almost _wistful_. Leaning forward to pour herself more tea, Sybil added, “He is here to visit with his old Mémère for a few days before his departure. I simply _insisted_.”

Alphard didn’t seem particularly put upon. He smiled guilelessly at his aunt and peppered her shamelessly with wildly exaggerated and inexplicable compliments (Sybil, have you _grown_ since I last saw you? Surely you have, or am I shrinking? Oh, well, if I am shrinking perhaps you can just keep me in your pockets, there are worse fates than living to entertain the most beautiful woman in New England…). He kissed his cousin Walburga on both cheeks and took Irma’s hand daintily.

For all that Sybil thought Irma was one of those… sapphic women, Alphard’s hand sent a sharp surge of heat under her fingernails, through her radius, up her humerus, burning beneath her breasts (and elsewhere). Like Walburga, he had vaguely attractive, forgettable face, but dark eyes that burned right through her. She quickly looked away from his amused, grey eyes to linger instead on the delicate veins on the inside of his wrist she felt pulse in time with her heart. Walburga, who always saw everything, immediately steered the conversation to the Victory gardens.

“Irma, why don’t you tell my dear cousin Alphard all about them?” 

Anyone might have thought the request was just a proud friend encouraging another to show off their best and brightest side. But Walburga knew that Irma had yet to catch her breath—she had no chance of letting anything out of her mouth apart from a hiss of discomfort or a gasp for air. Alphard withdrew his hand and stepped back, expectant.

Mémère Sybil was not amused. “Yes,” she drawled, “Walburga and her Hogwarts friend have been running themselves to the bone working on these gardens. I believe I have heard enough about Herbology in the past year to last me two more lifetimes. I never quite grasped the subject myself at school and I do believe I am quite old enough to just let my limitations stand.” She put out her arm and without another word Alphard moved forward and helped her to her feet. She daintily refluffed her skirts and smiled up at her guest. “Let me show you the new paintings I had commissioned.”

The two young women ardently avoided each other’s eyes and Irma half-heartedly made up an errand that would keep her away until the following afternoon.

When he arrived, Alphard Black had not yet purchased the home on Beacon Street that he would nearly leave to his seventeen-year-old nephew five-times removed, but he was seriously considering it. He asked Irma about it the next time he saw her, as she knelt among the beets in Walburga’s garden. He’d left Massachusetts as soon as he’d graduated from Hogwarts, ostensively studying in France but really just playing the ex-pat in Paris. He’d assumed returning to his old hometown would be comforting, but Alphard found that the war had changed things, leaving him feeling uncommonly out of place. Which signaled to him that he needed to put down roots, clearly.

Casually, Irma told him she thought Beacon Street was quite nice as she poured a shiny green potion into the dirt. She was determined to act less like a fat-head than she had when she’d met him. He wasn’t a handsome man and she really was more than a little sapphic, after all.

And yet, as he teased Walburga, who was perched on a nearby to take notes of the experimental conditions, Irma allowed him to breech her defenses. Alphard didn’t hesitate as he sat down directly on the grass, hands behind him and legs spread in front of him. It was like this that Irma and Walburga would most fondly remember Alphard, and it would make it hard for Irma to chaperon the Hogsmeade trips during Sirius Black’s seventh year. He would sling an arm over Mr. Potter’s shoulder like Alphard did when he toured his cousin and her friend through what would soon be his new neighborhood. Walburga was not impressed by the deli next to his home, but Irma bit into the pastrami sandwiches with relish.

It was an open secret that Mémère Sybil hoped he would marry Walburga and for those short two weeks that Alphard visited they were happy to indulge her fantasy as they indulged their own of being young and free enough to taste all the fruit, be it mealy or succulent. Together they ignored the war as best they could, latching onto the laughter and tenderness of those muggy summer days.

“Why are you buying this house if you’re going to Mexico?” The question behind the veil was what was in Mexico, but neither Irma nor Walburga had the stomach for his answer. They could read it on his aquiline silhouette and in the way he offered them cigarettes they always declined. He pulled the smoke deeply into himself and licked at his dry lips.

Alphard answered offhandedly in Mémère Sybil’s garden, underneath an old maple tree that would outlive those seated beneath it. “What purpose does travel serve if you have nothing to feel homesick for?”

This is a question an adult Remus will answer in reverse— Can you smother that feeling, you know the one, that tightening pressure of hands around your throat, by traveling (hiding?) from place to place until nothing reminds you of home? Home, where those hands were attached to someone who may or may not have been tying a noose as they caressed the inside of your thigh. Walburga, if she cared to, could remind Remus that something will always remind you of home. Blood will always win out and what is home if not where you’ve shed blood?

“Seems a waste to let a perfectly good house sit empty like that,” Irma responded coolly on August 1, 1945, days before Alphard was set to leave for Mexico on a ship. Germany’s surrender had calmed the turbulent seas and Mémère Sybil was only slightly concerned for his safety.

Alphard chuckled, but the sound was dry and contemptuous. “It won’t be sitting empty. I have a friend who will be staying there while I’m in Mexico.” He stumbled over the word ‘friend,’ his lips curving into an ugly sneer. 

His friend, who never escaped the nebulous space between that contemptuous laugh and the smell and sensation of peeling a juicy orange with your hand, that friend met Sirius Black and James Potter at the door of the Beacon Street house, not much changed by the passing years. It was what seemed like the last warm day of the year, so the two boys took the opportunity to wear their muggle t-shirts and fashionable blue jeans. Alphard’s friend took them in in a way that would have embarrassed Alphard had he still been alive; Sirius noticed, but James did not.

“You must be the special Mr. Black with the distinction of being included in Alfy’s will,” Alphard’s friend drawled. When Sirius only shrugged, the man sighed and stepped back to let them both inside. “Well, I can certainty see the family resemblance.”

When neither responded, he led them further into the house and continued, “You would think inheriting a small fortune happens every day! I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure, for all that one would have expected it after all these years…” The hallway was painted a soft yellow and decorated sparingly but thoughtfully. On a small table at the end of the hall sat a vase of wilted sunflowers and a small photo of Alphard and his friend standing proudly in front of a garden. The tiny Alphard didn’t take his arm off his friend’s shoulder as he waved up at his nephew.

The garden resembled one Sirius played in as a toddler that he hadn’t bothered to remember, along with Mémère Sybil’s iced beet juice. Even long after Irma stopped visiting, her beets continued to flourish until Sybil found new uses for them. Walburga drank her beet juice in silence and when Druella kept the house after Mémère Sybil passed on, she let her older sister raze the garden and put in a swimming pool.

The picture of Alphard with dark and wavy hair was taken in 1946, when he returned to his “new” home from Mexico to find that his friend was willing to compromise at last. (“Isn’t it enough that I’ve bought you a goddam _house_?”) Irma took that picture, worked the garden, and eventually found a small nook in the lives of Alphard and Walburga Black, who were both mercurial and whose friendships were not unlike biting into a lemon.

Alphard’s friend offered Sirius and James coffee and when they accepted, left them in the drawing room after putting on the first record from a tall, haphazard stack beside the record player. That’s really not how you should store LPs, James thought because Remus wasn’t there to think it. Sirius tried not to think, because the song was one of Remus’ favorites and that realization made him want to both laugh and frown because he had no idea who sang it or what it was called.

_And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor and I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there, your face, your race, the way that you talk, I kiss you, you’re beautiful, I want you to walk_

Three days after Alphard’s ship departed, they learned about the first bomb. They all began touching themselves and each other more often, as if to be sure they hadn’t dissolved, that nothing was seeping into them from the ground, traveling in waves like those toxic clouds printed in the newspaper. Mémère Sybil put a hiatus on discouraging Irma’s visits. Irma stopped reading the Prophet when she began to see explosions even behind her eyelids. The war ended, but peace fit like a shirt someone else had stretched out.

Who pays the costs of war, Irma wondered as she accompanied Walburga to Regulus’ funeral. Who owes the debts that remain?

Alphard’s friend finally emerged through another door with a beige slip of paper. Not that Sirius had expected a wheelbarrow full of Galleons, but… really, that was it? “This is it,” Alphard’s friend confirmed, handing him the information for the Gringotts vault that now belonged to him.

“What’ll happen to this house?” James inquired (just to make polite conversation!) as he followed Sirius’ lead and stood. Alphard’s friend paused and gave James a discerning look.

“Nothing. I live here. It’s mine.” His tone was hard and defensive. Sirius tried to clean up after his blustering friend, shooing him back down the hall they came from and shrugging helplessly at the offended man. 

“He’s not potty trained, sorry.” He stepped forward to shake the man’s hand, but Alphard’s friend didn’t move, his eyes still narrowed. Sirius finally let his hand drop and stepped from foot to foot nervously. He could just walk out, now that he had what he came for. But he was trying to be better, less self-interested all the time. And here was someone who was almost extended family and who was hurting in his own prickly way. Sirius realized with a start that Alphard’s friend hadn’t attended the funeral and it was possible he hadn’t been invited. Even Sirius, disowned and disgraced and given the cold shoulder by the entire family except for Andromeda, even he had been told his presence was expected.

Was this what was in store for him? He still hadn’t brought up his newfound sexual confusion to James, Peter or (godric forbid) Remus, but he was slowly coming to terms with his lack of attraction to women. It was easy to get caught up in it all when it seemed like all James and Peter would talk about were girls— their bodies, the looks they gave, the signals they sent (or mostly didn’t send). It wasn’t hard for Sirius to play along, all he had to do was pick a pretty girl and say he liked her. It was a game, really, was she looking at him? Should he look at her? When should he go up to her, he’d ask James, only to ignore his ‘advice’ and wait for her to come to him. They usually did.

Kissing them wasn’t difficult, but he didn’t typically get caught up in it. He moved on quickly, tugging at their skirts and his pants, his eyes closed. He hadn’t gone all the way yet, but he’d come close. He wasn’t particularly scared or worried about it happening; if anything, sometimes he hoped it happened sooner rather than later so that he could just be done with it.

But now that he could guess at what he really wanted, could he just go back to that forever? Could he just find a chick who wasn’t too hard to put up with, who made him laugh, who was willing to take the lead in the bedroom and chalk his reluctance to shyness? What was the alternative?

Remus would never be bitter like the stout man who was still glaring at him, but that didn’t mean that there wouldn’t come a day when Sirius would be gone and the person he left behind (it might never be Remus, but Sirius couldn’t imagine anyone else at seventeen) would just be Sirius’ old friend. How strange, people would say, that Sirius left his house to his friend.

Sirius looked to the left of Alphard’s friend and muttered, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Alphard’s friend responded. Sirius forced himself to look at him again and his eyes were round and surprised.

But one apology was enough. “Most of my family are assholes, I’m sure you know that already. It doesn’t fucking matter what they think as long as Uncle Alphard loved you.”

Alphard’s friend went from surprised to gaping disbelief and the silence stretched long enough for Sirius to regret not slumping out with James, but before he could do so, Alphard’s friend stepped forward and put a hand on Sirius’ shoulder. He remembered Uncle Alphard doing something similar when he as still alive and wondered if the habit was something his friend had picked up from him or vice versa. 

“If you ever need anything, Mr. Black, don’t hesitate to call.”

After the end of the war, Alphard left Boston for a time with his friend and Walburga began drawing into herself like a riflebird abandoning a futile mating dance. Irma always thought despite the growing distance between them that she would be the first one summoned when Walburga had her first child, the obvious choice for godmother. Instead, she heard from a mutual friend that Walburga’s first son had been named Sirius, thanks to her husband Orion’s ridiculous astrological obsession, and that Druella was asked to be his godmother.

Enough was enough. Irma owled her oldest friend, inviting her to lunch to celebrate the (relatively) new birth and to give her a much needed from break from the baby. Walburga rarely saw Sirius before two in the afternoon, but she didn’t bothering correcting Irma when she wrote back with a suggested date and location.

Walburga arrived at the suggested French restaurant early and chose a small table near the small front window. She was tempted to order two glasses of wine, but she knew that the maitre d’ would make sure the word would get back to Mémère that Walburga was drinking alone at a restaurant and she’d never hear the end of it. She was forced to busy her hands with her water glass until Irma burst in, ten minutes late. Irma, never one for pleasantries, sat down and dove right in. “Sirius? I thought you wanted to name your first son Henry.”

Most people would have started with an apology or at least an explanation for their lateness, but Walburga had forgotten Irma’s unreasonably high threshold for shame. If it had been anyone else Walburga would have snapped back with a biting remark, but faced with Irma’s familiar flushed face (always rushing) and that same old cashmere sweater, all Walburga could do was laugh. Irma smiled back hesitantly, melting the first icy layer Walburga had carefully constructed. 

“Yes, well, you know Orion, he likes that sort of thing and, really, what is a wife to do?” she answered, having recovered.

Irma snorted rudely, suddenly aware that she may have picked up some bad habits. Nevertheless, she carried on: “No, actually, I don’t know Orion at all and I’m far from the expert on what wives should or shouldn’t do.” She paused slyly. “But I never knew you to be such a pushover.”

Walburga’s famously lengthy pauses had also not changed. Irma reached out and accidentally picked up Walburga’s water glass, drinking from it too quickly for Walburga to call attention to her mistake. She drank loudly, the muscles in her throat moving obscenely. There was a small, almost indiscernible bruise at the base of her neck.

“Is that what this lunch is about?” she finally responded, her voice low and angry. “Are you here to throw wanting to be a wife and mother in my face as if it is something I should be ashamed of?”

Irma put down the glass. “No.” She placed both hands flat on the top of her table, feeling the soft fabric of the tablecloth beneath her rough palms. “I suppose I’m here to throw in your face that you tossed me aside like a used handkerchief.” She stared directly across the table at Walburga, who refused to look away. Irma’s smirk didn’t reach her eyes. “Although I did intend to express it more subtly through indirect remarks about how I’ve never met your husband or your son.” Walburga’s formal wedding, where Irma had been one of nearly six hundred guests, did not count.

Walburga had considered her friendship with Irma very carefully and for a long time before she’d really assented to Mémère’s courters. There were few things she enjoyed more than working through a complicated spell with Irma, but there were also few things that caused her more shame. Everything had been fine during Hogwarts and then during the war, when it didn’t quite seem like the appropriate time to be courting. But once the men returned, everything shifted again and the world narrowed, shoving Walburga back into the line she thought she’d gotten out of. The line Irma was not interested in waiting in.

It had been hard to pull away, at first, but practice makes perfect. She enjoyed Orion’s company most of the time. He had Irma’s same dry affect, but with more of a sense of humor and endless surprising quirks. Their first months of marriage were not perfect, but they were some of the best times Walburga and Orion ever spent as a couple. 

Walburga’s pregnancy had been difficult and she’d often felt a dark mood clouding her thoughts, but Mémère watched her carefully and made sure Walburga did not give in and reach out to her old friend for support. This was a time for family, Sybil assured her niece, and brewed her meticulously measured potions to help her rest.

There was no right way to explain to Irma why things had turned out the way they had. Walburga loved her son and she had grown to care for Orion. She would not apologize to Irma for that.

“There are many things I cannot say to you, Irma.” Walburga’s eyes were hard, but her mouth turned down, her sharp edges wavering if you knew where to look. “Many things I will never say to you.”

Irma didn’t respond immediately, staring intently at Walburga’s face. Despite her haughty tone, there were new lines of her face and the while her posture was as perfect as ever, it seemed less like a point of pride than a way to make sure her body didn’t collapse onto itself. Irma laid her right hand gently over Walburga’s left until the other woman looked up from the tablecloth. “I won’t ever give a damn what you say or don’t say to me. If you ever need anything, you just let me know and I’ll be there.”

In 1977, there was one person beside Andromeda who spoke to Sirius at Alphard’s funeral. He was so thrown off seeing her outside of the Hogwarts library he had asked her to repeat her question. 

Irma Pince reached over to brush some crumbs off his robe. “I asked, Mr. Black, if you are still staying in Providence during the breaks.” She was almost a foot shorter than him, but he was always eleven when caught in her stern stare.

“Yes, Madam Pince,” he answered automatically. Then: “Wait, how do you know that?”

The librarian sniffed and raised a thick eyebrow. “Your mother worries, you know.” Her gaze softened and she turned away suddenly to fill him a cup of coffee from the refreshment table beside them. “But you look good, healthy.”

“I’m fine,” he told her tightly before she could go on.

“I’ll be sure to let her know,” she responded, handing him a warm paper cup. She didn’t offer to be there for him if he needed anything, but she did offer him and James a ride back to Hogwarts in her Volvo. James sacrificed himself and took the front seat, making polite conversation with Madam Pince until she pulled up to the Gryffindor dorm building. Both boys tumbled out of the car and almost missed Madam Pince telling them to be safe.

Irma will initially be uncomfortable with Remus Lupin joining the Hogwarts faculty. As a long-time member of the staff she will have been long aware that Mr. Lupin’s last name is overkill. But Remus by that point will have perfected his tactful politeness and his tendency to pretend to be more invested in a conversation than he actually is. Irma’s discomfort will eventually give way to guilt. How could she have looked at the young boy he was at Hogwarts and see a danger? She’d really believed at the time that Walburga’s eldest was in danger, living with a werewolf. 

Sirius’ escape will be on her mind often, that year, as it must be on Remus’. She will only dare to bring the subject up with him once, when they are the only two left in the drafty faculty room. A photo of Azkaban was featured on the front page of the Prophet, the wind whipping violently against the tall grass that covered the dunes around the prison. She will bring up Walburga.

“I knew his mother, you know.” Irma will not need to explain who she refers to. “She tried to visit him several times.” And each time she seemed to get thinner and thinner until she became completely unmoored from her body. “Walburga never believed he’d done it.”

Remus will want to tell Madam Pince to shut the fuck up. He’ll want to throw himself into the fireplace to avoid having this conversation. He’ll want to tell her that Walburga wasn’t alone, that he’d been tempted to visit the island himself, but had decided to get on a boat to Spain instead. He’ll want to bring Walburga Black back to life if only to spit in her face and ask her where she’d failed. Where they’d failed. What he’d failed to see.

He’ll press his palms into his eyes until he sees stars and answer, “That doesn’t surprise me. I once met a vampire in Paris who claimed to have known her cousin, Alphard.” By ‘met,’ Remus meant that they gotten blind drunk and Remus had gone home with him.

“He told me he’d never met a wizard more proud his lineage.” The next morning, the vampire had described Alphard Black’s strict instructions regarding confidentiality—Blacks didn’t fuck vampires. While the vampire hadn’t cared much for the wizard’s rules, he’d kept Alphard’s ‘secret’ until he’d heard the the Black line had pretty much caved in on itself. Maybe some more vampire fucking would have helped, the vampire had joked darkly, showing his sharp, white teeth.

They’ll share a heavy silence for several beats, considering why that pride had drawn them in like moths to flame. Why, even after all these years of living their own truths and learning to walk with confidence in their own skin, they still looked back wistfully on days they’d been asked to yield to that pride. Neither will share their thoughts with the other and instead their memories will stew, gather strength and get taken out on their students. Irma will have a migraine as she visits Walburga’s grave in the wizarding portion of the Granary Burial Ground. She will never know that Walburga’s and Sybil’s portraits still gather dust at 12 Grimmauld Place or that Harry Potter will send the portraits to be burned after the end second (third? fourth?) war in an approximation of what he believe his godfather would have wanted. She will lay a handful of carrots from her garden on the dirt, already hardened by the early winter frost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ojos Del Sol ♪ Y La Bamba  
> Five Years ♪ David Bowie


	9. Why Can't You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where real life intrudes without knocking.
> 
> cw: non-graphic violence

James tightened his hold on Sirius’ waist as they made a sharp right turn on Sirius’ bike. The crisp autumn air snapped against their faces, their eyes dry and wide as they tried to follow the trail of car lights in front of them. A few loose rocks bounced against their shins. Sirius zoomed onto Soldiers Field, pulling ahead of a navy blue Chevy and speeding up to swerve in front of it.

The blue and red lights of the police car reflected through the rear view mirror onto James’ glasses. If either considered stopping and letting the muggle cops pick them up, neither said anything. Cars honked and moved out of the way as they wove in and out of traffic, moving infinitesimally further from the police. James looked over his right shoulder. The waning moon silhouetted the Death Eaters in the mostly clear night sky, the threat both shadowy and clear. James couldn’t even identify whether their assailants-to-be were men or women. Classmates or strangers.

The Marauders had decided seventh year was going to be _sick_ and even Remus had discreetly agreed. The first sign was Sirus' bike, bought with his inheritance. They hid the bike successfully until McGonagall caught them one night and forced Sirius to leave it at James’ house.

Before Sirius and James made the trip down to Providence, Sirius took his friends for ride after ride, dodging as much NEWT studying as he could. Surprisingly, Sirius took most of those trips with Peter or Remus. James was absent most afternoons as a tutor for Lily's NEWT study sessions, which she felt were part of her responsibilities as Head Girl. Then again, which part of that was out of character? Sirius’ surprise gave way to jealous irritation and he talked loudly about his motorcycle to avoid how much he wanted James to pick him, instead. Whenever James stumbled out of their room after Lily, Peter was happy to tinker with the bike with Sirius and the two of them often showed up to Charms, their only class on Thursdays, with black gunk underneath their fingernails that cleaning spells couldn’t reach.

Remus couldn’t give a flying fuck about manual gearboxes or four cylinder engines or 360 cranks, but he liked the free chauffeuring service. Sirius didn’t mind and saw it as part of his lifetime repayment plan, which Remus wouldn’t have disputed exuberantly. They didn't plan their daytime rides. Sometimes they rode out of Cambridge into white Belmont and Watertown, through Armenian festivals and farmland to the west. Remus let himself lean against Sirius, hands courteously on the other boy’s hips at all times, even when Sirius sped impossibly fast past cows and infinite rows of trees.

They occasionally rode in silence, but it was companionable and sandwiched comfortably between foolish and serious discussions. A year had worn away at most of Remus’ rage and Sirius’ guilt and while they would never feel the same childlike awe about their friendship, there was something to be said about knowing the worst of the other and still being able to hold a conversation on the back of a motorcycle at 50 miles an hour. 

“So you’re really gay, huh?” The question took Remus by surprise; he’d thought they were all well past this. 

“Yeah…” Remus agreed, staring at his friend’s hair tie in confusion. Had James said something to Sirius about Gideon?

A cow groaned at them as they passed, the dry brown leaves cracking underneath the wheels. Remus felt Sirius swallow and instinctively squeezed Sirus’ hip in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. Finally:

“I think I—” Another pause, another swallow, then a short cough. Remus waited.

“I’ve been—” This time stillness, except for Sirius’ hands and feet, which made the motorcycle speed up. The wind was at their backs, pushing the loose strands of Sirius’ hair into his eyes.

“Turns out I like kissing Lionel Dercole,” he said, speaking clearly and slowly, as if he couldn’t bear having Remus ask him repeat himself.

Remus cycled quickly through emotions: surprise, amusement, sympathy, impatience, more amusement because he’d also kissed Lionel, embarrassment at not having guessed, sadness, irritation at Sirius elbowing his way into a space Remus had been building for himself… Ultimately, as it usually did during these bike rides, the urge to tease Sirius won out.

“I see,” he began, leaving Sirius tense and guessing. “Well, I agree that his tongue can make some very good points…”

Sirius jerked them into the other lane and, thankfully, they were still alone on the road. “Sirius!” Remus yelled, leaning away as if he could pull the motorcycle into the right lane through sheer willpower. Sirius quickly righted them, but glanced back at Remus, mouth agape. 

“C’mon, Sirius,” Remus chuckled, “I know you’re better lookin than me, but Hogwarts isn’t overflowing with homos, y’know. There’s gonna be some overlap.”

“Don’t we fucking share enough…” Sirius murmured, but laughed, easing the nervous pounding in Remus’ chest.

On other nights they rode more slowly through Boston, familiarizing themselves with the bars littering the city. On one Friday night, while James insinuated himself into Lily’s routine and Peter helped Dorcas train on the Quidditch pitch, Remus took Sirius to the Combat Zone. On their way there, Remus spent the entire ride warning Sirius and making him promise that he wouldn’t do anything stupid to embarrass him. Finally Sirius promised he wouldn’t touch anything or speak without Remus’ express permission. “Actually, maybe I shouldn’t open my eyes at all!” 

Sirius reluctantly left his precious bike in an alley parked discretely underneath an inordinate number of concealment spells. The Combat Zone was fairly close to where he’d grown up, but he had no doubt he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. The streets were covered in energetic muggles wearing their strange jackets and hats, which would be enough to drive most of his family right back underground if they were ever to accidentally apparate onto Washington Street. 

“It’s just different, that’s all. You won’t know ’til you see it.” A young woman in a short, layered dress pulled away slightly from the concrete entryway she’d been leaning on and ran the tips of her fingers up her inner thigh and winked. She greeted them with a deep, throaty “Hey,” but Remus ignored her so Sirius pulled his eyes away and followed.

Sirius broke his promises immediately when they walked into the Playland Cafe, his eyes wide as plates and roving over the chests and asses on display beneath thin layers of polyester. It was an hour before closing and the bar was at least six people deep. Aside from a couple of exuberant outliers, the muggles outside looked much like they always did, but in here— No one was necessarily dressed differently, but

Sirius leaned over to whisper in Remus’ ear: “Is everyone here gay?”

Remus rolled his eyes and nodded. 

Sirius hadn’t known until he saw it. The lights flickered in different colors, as if by magic. On the dance floor pinks and yellows sparkled off metal belts, jewelry and sweat as couples (men!) danced both close and separately. He watched with bugged eyes as two men stepped away from each other, each of them swinging their hips and laughing as they snuffled on their feet in a pattern foreign to Sirius, then stepping back together and turning in time with the music. One man had his hand on the other’s back pocket. Was he sque—

_Ring my bell!_

Remus jostled him with his pointy elbow and passed him a drink. His looked manly and plain, a dark liquor over ice. The one in Sirius’ hand was a noxious orange. He peered down at it inquisitively, then back up at Remus with a raised eyebrow. “Couldn’t I just get a Narragansett? I don’t know if I’m quite gay enough for this yet.”

He expected another eye roll, but Remus surprised him by throwing his head back and laughing. “I think you’re overestimating just how butch you are, Pads.”

_Well, c’mon and let yourself be free_

“Just try it. I promise it’s good.” Something in it was trying real hard to be orange juice, but it was just syrup and the sweetness lingered thickly on Sirius’ tongue. He took another long sip instead of responding. A group of men stepped around Remus to walk down the steps onto the dancefloor. One of them looked over his shoulder at Remus and shamelessly ran his gaze over Remus’ body. Sirius found himself staring back at the stranger, whose eyes were curious and hungry. The strange man smirked and nodded appreciatively. Sirius felt both sick and protective, so he blushed and looked down at his drink. He was suddenly self-conscious and wondered if he should’ve checked in with Remus about his outfit before they left.

Remus turned around to follow Sirius’ eye, but the man had already disappeared into the crowd.

The orange drink slipped down more easily after that and Sirius let Remus pull him over toward the rest of the crowd. The pulsing of the crowd seemed to intensify, as if everyone could feel the night coming to a close. Sweat dripped down his back and he wished he hadn’t worn his leather jacket. Remus had told him not to and he’d ignored him.

A one point a man stepped behind Sirius, placing a confident hand on the top of his thigh. He froze and shot Remus a panicked look. 

Remus stepped forward languidly, somehow still following the song’s beat. He placed a gentle hand on Sirius’ right arm and spoke over his left shoulder to the other man: “Sorry, taken.” Without waiting for a response, he took Sirius’ left hand and pulled him to safety. He didn’t let go until Sirius met his gaze and nodded. Remus spun Sirius once, then slipped away.

Guitar strumming interrupted the frantic movements and the tempo slowed. The MC muttered into a crackly microphone that this would be the last slow song. A man that seemed to know Remus tapped him on the shoulder and asked, smiling, if he wanted to dance.

It would’ve been so easy to look uncomfortable and drag Remus with him back toward the bar to safety. So easy to keep this strange man’s hands off of Remus’ waist, keep his lips from whispering into Remus’ ear.

It was hard to tell Remus not to worry about it, that he needed to find a bathroom anyway. Remus nodded sheepishly and let him know where to find them.

If Sirius had actually gone to look for the bathroom he might have found more of an education than he was ready for and no empty stalls on top of it. Instead he leaned against the wall at what he considered a safe distance and watched Remus dance.

This wasn’t anything like the slow waltzes of Sirius’ childhood or the awkward swaying in the Gryffindor common room to Francoise Hardy’s gentle whining. Here, they danced together during the slow build up, their feet moving them in a half circle before the trumpets energized the song and they finally pulled apart completely to swing back and forth separately. Remus said something that made the other man laugh.

If this was Remus’ type, then Sirius really had no chance. He was broad shouldered and tall enough to tower slightly over Remus; he wore his red pants well, muscles filling them out in a way even Sirius could appreciate; his hair was combed out into an afro that he had managed to keep shaped despite the sweat and proximity to swinging limbs. He looked like a nice, dependable muggle with his shit together.

Sirius looked past them at everyone else dancing. None of them had any idea that there was a dark wizard keen on seeing them all set aflame.

It didn’t occur to him that the muggles at the Playland Cafe would be perfectly familiar with the concept of someone wanting to light them on fire over something they had no control over. Wizards, while not entirely welcoming of homosexuality, rarely resorted to death threats when there was blood purity get upset about.

But, as Remus’ mother would say, _cada loco con su tema_.

The song ended and Sirius hoped Remus would immediately excuse himself and scan the room for Sirius. Instead, Remus continued dancing, but a little more loosely as he and the red pants man carried on a conversation. 

Sirius would run into the man again on other Playland nights and would find out that Remus had actually met Rob (Mr. Red Pants, to Sirius, he seemed to sleep with those form fitting pants on) through Gideon, which didn’t make Sirius feel much better about Rob. 

James had told Sirius the summer before last that Remus had been hooking up with Gideon, but that he seemed a little embarrassed about it so Sirius shouldn’t ask or say anything. During those tender, bruised months that followed Sirius’ prank, he didn’t dare and then it was too late to ask. Remus never brought Gideon up. Peter mentioned every so often in passing that he and Remus had taken a bus over to Somerville where Gideon and Fabian had gotten an apartment, but other than that, Remus had perfected the art of compartmentalization. Sirius even knew that Remus was going to Playland without him (he’d ask James to borrow the cloak and the next day it would smell sharply of menthol cigarettes, which Remus didn’t smoke) and Sirius assumed he was going with Gideon.

Later, after Sirius had managed to peel back of some Remus’ many layers, Remus would tell Sirius how Gideon had rebounded (if you could call it that… Gideon did, Remus wouldn’t) with Rob when Remus pulled away after the Incident with his father. Remus always called it the Incident, just like he always referred to Sirius’ prank as the Fuck-Up. 

In the end there were too many things Gideon had to keep from Rob, but when the romance fizzled they remained friendly. That worked for Remus, who liked hanging out with Rob. He reminded Remus of home, of easy relationships built around shared love of rhythm, of soft brusqueness. Rob spoke in a way that dunked Remus in homesickness. He was even close to his cousins that lived in Irvington, New Jersey so he and Remus could reminisce about childhood memories that Gideon and Sirius, white and pureblood, had no framework for. 

On their way home that first night, Sirius teased Remus about how differently he carried himself at Playland. “You’re like a king in his castle,” which meant that Remus was confident and joyful in that dark club, letting strangers brush against him and, when he wanted to, brushing back. “You’re not like that at school.”

Remus wondered when he had given up trying to translate himself into a language Sirius could comprehend. Was it since the Fuck Up or had it started before then? The boy who’d gratefully clung to a shaggy dog in the nurse’s office had wanted so much to be consumed by Sirius’ overwhelming friendship. But somewhere along the way that fire had begun to burn away who Remus was beneath his armor and he’d had to make a choice between who he wanted to be and who could be Sirius’ best friend. The choice was easy, but the consequence was that now he had to sit behind Sirius on his fancy motorbike and explain that Sirius didn’t really know him.

Or not. “School is different,” Remus responded offhandedly, reverting already back to his stoic Hogwarts persona, and left it at that. Sirius didn’t push, not then. They used a spell to get through the toll booth without paying and zipped through the dry autumn night toward Hogwarts, arriving in record time.

The night McGonagall would catch Sirius and James on his motorbike, Remus invited Sirius to join him and Gideon at the Playland. He leaned his hip against the library desk, his books and parchment already gathered in his arms. Sirius stared up at his friend for a second too long without answering. Remus’ fingers began to rap nervously again the book covers and he added, “I mean, if you want…”

Did he want? Remus had made it clear in his opaque way that he wasn’t dating Gideon, but he also hadn’t bothered to get any closer to Sirius, unless he was lying to men Sirius wasn’t comfortable dancing with.

Maybe he should _get_ comfortable. He wasn’t getting anywhere with Remus and there were certainly some interested folks at Playland.

Remus lunged at Sirius’ hesitance. Without even bothering to look around he began to gently wiggle his shoulders with a smile. “Oh, what’cha gonna do?” he whispered the lyrics to Sirius’ (new) favorite song. “D’ya wanna get down?” He leaned forward as much as he dared with the books in his hand. “How you gonna do it if you really don’t wanna dance, by standing on the wall?”

Sirius liked the song because it made him feel like he had the balls to go up to Remus and _really_ dance with him instead of next to him. It made me him feel like if he took a chance, he would find that he was a better dancer than he thought and he’d be able keep up with Remus. Hell, once you were hip to hip it couldn’t be that hard, could it?!

“Get your back up off the wall!” A few tables turned to look as Remus finished the chorus, but he ignored them.

Good advice, but it meant that he really needed to stop going out to salivate over unattainable friends and equally unreachable muggles. Sirius masked his discomfort by laughing and lying about plans he’d already made with James.

He didn’t have plans with James, of course, but he’d reached his limit on trying to work through the bramble of his feelings without his best friend. Time to put his foot down.

“I can’t, Pads, I told Lily I’d help her start in on the Halloween decorations in the common room.” James didn’t look up from his parchment, but Sirius stood over the side of James’ bed in silence until he stopped writing and glanced up. 

Sirius built a wall over the span of many years. He’d laid the bricks down haphazardly at first, almost as if he hadn’t really believed the wall would be necessary. One brick when he asked his father the wrong question and Orion told him if he wasn’t careful he’d end up mediocre like a mudblood. Another when his favorite cousin, Bella, left for Hogwarts and came back taller and crueler. When Andromeda married a muggle-born and Bella slammed a door shut on her sister’s hand. Another. Aunt Druella telling Walburga over dinner that she would have preferred Andromeda had aborted her baby. Another. Regulus asking, later and under Sirius’ covers, what an abortion was. Another. Regulus looking at him with disbelief, then with awe, then with pride, and slowly with disgust and, worse, disinterest. Another. Another. Sirius couldn’t look over the wall anymore.

James thought his role as Best Friend was to help Sirius knock down those walls. That every laugh, every well-executed prank, every whoop of triumph was one less brick. In reality, he had a key to a door and every else was just grout between bricks. Behind the wall, Sirius stockpiled all the emotions he’d decided were useless. 

Sirius looked down at James, frowning slightly. “I still need to find a place.” James glanced up, dismissal already prepared.

If there was any emotion Sirius did not do well, it was subdued annoyance. His jaw was clenched so tightly James could almost hear his teeth grinding. 

The purchase of the motorcycle had been planned as a stepping stone to renting an apartment. They’d talked about it all the way to the shop and most of the way back, in between yelling about the bike or Sirius’ driving. 

There was an appeal to having their own space, something that was out of reach from teachers and parents alike, but James knew it was more than that for Sirius. He was distracted by Lily, but he wasn’t blind. He knew that Sirius was worried about the future— they were graduating at the end of the year and there was no roadmap to follow once that milestone passed. James and Peter could go back home and Remus, between college or a regular job, would land on his feet. But Sirius needed roots, a role to play. After all his gripping about how much he hated his family and his house and his history, it came as a surprise to James that Sirius seemed homesick. Sirius would never say it out loud, but James noticed the comments and criticisms his friend dropped: that’s not how I like that; I’ve tasted better; you can’t pull off that jacket, etc. It was annoying, honestly, but James knew calling him out on it would only make him withdraw and he knew, like most of Sirius’ moods, it would pass.

They didn’t know at the time that the Order would fill that hole for Sirius. At the time, the best James hoped for was that Sirius might find a useful hobby, then join him in applying for Auror training.

But first steps first, Sirius needed somewhere that was his. James groaned and started packing away his schoolwork. “Alright, let me just let Lily know and I’ll meet you outside in like thirty minutes, yeah?” Sirius rolled his eyes, but acceded.

Neither of them knew how to look for an apartment for Sirius as they set out that autumn afternoon. Sirius vetoed Cambridge (too close for comfort!) and Somerville (it gives me bad vibes; you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with—; no!). They headed west first, but they found only old houses and bland brick apartment buildings lining the quiet streets. Sirius took them past Mt. Auburn Cemetery and James made a bad halloween joke about banshee boobs that made Sirius laugh.

They crossed the Charles into Allston and pulled over to find a place to get some food before they continued their search. They couldn’t recognize any of the muggle snacks in the convenience store and finally chose some fruit pies that looked safe. As James counted out the change they needed to pay, Sirius studied the paper hanging up next to the cashier:

**APARTMENT FOR RENT - AVAILABLE NOW**

The letters were blocky but neat, which made Sirius think of a broad, serious man with a garage and maybe even a motorcycle of his own. The man’s ad was succinct and to the point, describing the apartment merely as a second story two-bed, one bath in Allston. The bottom of the paper was cut into strips, each with the name FRED and a phone number repeated in dark ink.

Sirius interrupted James’ counting and leaned over the counter to ask the cashier if they could borrow the telephone to make a quick call. He wasn’t sure they’d have enough left over after all these pies to use a pay phone and he was a little hesitant at the prospect of using a public telephone anyway. The cashier glanced between the two boys, visibly weighing his options.

“I just want to call for this apartment,” Sirius urged, pointing at the sign on the cashier. He emphasized his Brahmin accent (which had yet to fully fade regardless).

That did it. “Yeah, jus’ come ‘round here behind the counter,” he instructed, then quickly added, “One of ya.” Instead of ripping off one of the tabs Sirius yanked the entire sheet off the cashier and bounded around the corner to the dented yellow phone tucked on a small shelf. He picked up the phone and tried to dial expertly, but the cashier’s stare made him nervous and he had to start over three times. 

Finally the phone rang.

“‘Lo?” The man’s wife answered, which was fine. Sirius could charm his way through her to her husband.

“Hello, my name is Sirius Black and I am calling about the apartment for rent?” He stopped short of asking to speak to Fred, it would please her if he pretended to think he could deal with her directly. 

On the other line, the woman shuffled and made a pleased hum. “Fan-tastic! I really am hoping to find a someone as soon as possible, my last tenants have found themselves in the family way and it just isn’t the right space for a child, you see. I understand, but it does put me in a pickle. When do you think you could come ‘round to see it? It’s right off Cambridge Street.”

Sirius explained that he was practically around the corner and would be happy to drop by now if they she and her husband had a moment. 

“Husband? It’s 1977, boy, who has time for that?” She gave him directions and they hung up.

Leaving the bike where they’d parked it, Sirius and James walked to Fred’s apartment. James was underwhelmed (a part of him felt that he should just ask to rent a room from his uncle’s boyfriend, he definitely had the room and the house belonged more to Sirius than it did to him, anyway; he didn’t suggest it to Sirius, though, he was weirdly defensive about his uncle’s boyfriend), but Sirius kept an open mind. The front stairs were slightly crooked and a yellow tin that read Cafe Bustelo sat on the corner of the front step, half full of cigarette butts. He rang the top doorbell, as instructed, and opened the screen door; James hung back, studying the damp chair that accompanied them on the porch. After a few moments they heard a loud voice order them inside. “It’s open!”

Fred did not have a nervous bone in her body and she greeted them as if she’d been expecting them for months. They could smell the curry in her greying frizzy hair as she pulled them toward her. Her outfit was disjointed in the way that wizards struggled to mimic muggle fashion—cream linen pants matched with a garish flowy blouse topped with a dark brown oversized bomber jacket. They looked around surreptitiously for signs of witchery, but found nothing. Fred jumped immediately into the tour as soon as the introductions were out of the way. The tenants were in mid-move and their entire life was scattered across the old floorboards and stacked precariously on the wooden chairs arbitrarily placed around the apartment. 

The apartment was really an attic that had been converted into a living space, but Sirius felt that just gave it a pleasant open feeling. The stairs opened directly into small space too exposed to be called a room, but too large to be ignored. This could be Padfoot’s space, he decided, a little corner where the dog fur could be isolated. While he had no issues getting dog fur all over his roommate’s things, his own apartment was another thing entirely.

A part of the wall in the front wall had chipped away and revealed the horse hair the original builders had used as insulation. The walls were painted a dull brown and one of the bedroom was deep purple with a single window that looked out onto the neighbor’s grey siding. James followed two steps behind Sirius as he strode through the rooms and asked animated questions about how the floor-level radiators worked and how she got the name Fred.

She was charmed by Sirius, as he predicted, because it pleased her when others loved what she did. It was an old house and it let out strange groans when winter winds blew through and birds occasionally found themselves inside, but it was hers. She had purchased it with her sister after the war and they’d both fixed it so that each would have privacy while still being able to have lunch together without having to put on boots or a coat. When her sister passed away, Fred decided to rent out the upstairs apartment, with varying success.

“So what do you do, hon?”

They’d discussed their cover story on the way over; it was part of the reason they had decided to walk in the first place. Sirius tripped over his words in his excitement.

“Jamie here is going to Harvard like the king that he is and, you see, he can’t bear to be apart, we’ve been friends for years and years and he’s a little bit co-dependent, in a totally, well, semi-healthy way.” James shot him a look over the woman’s shoulder that Sirius correctly interpreted to mean SLOW DOWN. Sirius ignored him and continued after a short intake of breath, “So I’ve come to lend him a hand, be the salt to his pepper, the Kneazle to his mouse, the fork to his knife, the—”

James slung an arm over his shoulder and tried to choke the rest of his words back into him. “Long story short, he’s working at a mechanics shop in Watertown.”

The woman took them in, noting the easy way they spoke over each other and the comfort each got from the simple physical contact of manhandling. Things had changed plenty in all her years, but not quite enough where the choice they were making would be easy. Fred pitied them and was hit with the urge to protect these spindly boys from the rest of the world. But she was sure they already knew what the world contained and were probably better suited to deal with its blows then she was at sixty-five. So all she said was, “You seem a touch young for a mechanic.”

Before Sirius could barrel into an explanation that would open the door to further questions, James jumped in. “I’m sure you’ve got pay stubs or something, right?” he asked, looking at Sirius then back at Fred. “It’s right up Beacon, by the river.”

“Yes! We could even take you if you want, I’ve got my bike with me,” Sirius added, dog with a bone and tail practically wagging. “I’ll leave Jamie here as collateral.”

Fred laughed and waved her hand at them, turning away and walking back into the kitchen where she’d left her cigarettes on the counter. “No need, my boy, I’m worried about your friend’s disposition if you were to leave him in a stranger’s house while we go on a joyride.” She tapped a cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “I don’t want to come back to a mess.” She smiled at them through her exhaled smoke.

“I think I love her,” Sirius told James as they walked out the front door twenty minutes later. Fred had told Sirius that she had another family coming to look at the apartment on Sunday and after that she would be able to give him her decision. They explained that James didn’t have a phone connected yet (did you connect phones like you connected a Floo?) so they would just call her on Sunday evening.

James snorted. “She’s just your type, eats your bullshit right up. I can’t believe she bought it!”

Sirius snuck a look over his shoulder to make sure that she couldn’t overhear from the house. There was no movement in the upstairs window. “What I can’t believe is that you doubted my acting abilities. I am truly a man of many talents, Prongs.”

James didn’t really think Sirius was going to get that apartment; from some of the looks she’d given them it was clear that she had her doubts. But it was worth it to see Padfoot get a second wind and it was good practice for the next apartment they’d visit. 

When they got to his bike, Sirius had moved on to describing how he was going to float color lights along the living room walls for Christmas. James, still keeping his thoughts to himself, climbed on behind him and clutched the metal behind him as they set off toward Cambridge. It was barely five in the evening, but the sun was already no more than a misty tinge of pink to the west. Three figures that had been standing on the roof of a nearby building launched off on their brooms after Sirius and James.

1977 was the year it became dangerous to associate with muggle-borns. It was the year that ‘blood traitor’ went from a whispered insult to a one that was easily thrown across the room. It was the year James’ parents warded their home and stopped attending their muggle neighbors’ annual Sukkot celebration. It was the year Lyall asked Esmeralda what she’d heard from the Potters about Remus.

James heard the hex before he felt it brush his right leg. He cursed in surprise and scanned the sky until he made out the three forms partially hidden by dusk. “Pads, I think there’s someone following us!”

The panic in his friend’s voice seeped into Sirius, who felt the cold prickle of fear up his back, over his shoulders, on the skin of his arms under his jacket. Without turning around, he swerved left, barely making the turn before the oncoming car got to the intersection. The extended honk followed them down the narrower street. James had barely managed to hug Sirius’ waist, but his scolding would wait. He peaked over his shoulder only for long enough to see they were still being followed. “We’re gonna have to do more than that to lose them.”

“Well, if you have any fucking ideas, now’s the time!” Sirius threw back, speeding up and turning left again, ignoring the street signs. James gripped his wand tightly as they leaned heavily into the turn.

Their priority didn’t seem to remain hidden, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to get back on a more populated road instead of these side streets. James was about to raise the point when Sirius swerved left again to get onto the busy Harvard Ave. Sirius didn’t even flinch as he weaved between cars, but James winced at every well-deserved honk. 

The Death Eaters didn’t even hesitate before flying into direct view of the rush hour traffic. He heard a crack and a terrified yell and turned around to see the shattered rear window of a car they had just passed. The red car behind it had barely stopped in time, but the third one in line had not been so lucky. Soon, neither could tell which honks were aimed at them or at the traffic.

Well, if they’d already broken the Statute of Secrecy, what was one more spell? James clenched his fist around Sirius’ belt and turned around to shoot a Stinging Jinx up at one of their assailants. It hit one of them on the side, causing them to briefly lose control of their broom and fall behind. The other two did not wait or turn back. James deflected series of hexes with a well-time Shield charm.

“I got one!” James crowed. They turned right onto Cambridge street and lost sight of them. 

They only got the chance to take one deep breath before a siren cut through the air. James looked over his shoulder at the police car that was moving steadily in their direction and was unmistakably intending to pull them over. 

“We can’t,” Sirius said, answering James’ unspoken question. “We’ll be sitting ducks and those muggles will be worse off.” He pressed hard on the gas and James thanked Merlin that he was still holding on to Sirius.

“I don’t know if we can lose them both,” James began, but Sirius ignored him and swerved left again. “Merlin! Can you fucking warn me?!”

“I’ll do the driving, you keep fucking hexing them!”

James turned back around to do exactly that and found that the third Death Eater had rejoined the group and they were only slightly behind the police car. The police car that was speeding up, the shrill siren overwhelming. Maybe all the lights would conceal the spell’s flash. He aimed another Stinging Jinx (missed) and a Knockback Jinx (successful). He didn’t watch to see if that would stop them and barely got his right arm around Sirius again before they once more made a precarious left, this time onto the faster Soldier’s Field Road. Behind them the cars pulled off and made room for the police car that was quickly gaining speed. James considered _Glacius_ , but he decided the risk of hurting the muggles in the police car or other bystanders was too great.

“We need to get back to Hogwarts,” James yelled over the sirens.

“No shit,” Sirius growled. “Where the fuck do you think we’re going? You need to stop that muggle car before they get fucked up. Try _Fumos_.”

James smothered his irritation at not having thought of that himself and sent a wall of smoke behind him at the incoming police vehicle. 

It slowed, but it did not stop. They underestimated the Boston Police Department’s ability to drive through blizzards. James sent a couple more jinxes into the sky above where the police car had disappeared and hoped that would be enough.

“Are they,” Sirius began.

“YES!” James shouted.

“Fuck.” James felt the bike slow down and heard Sirius murmur a charm at the front of the bike. When Sirius took his hands off the handles, the bike maintained its trajectory, albeit more slowly. 

“What’re you—”

“WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!”

The police car shot into the air, the Death Eaters colliding with it almost immediately, their bodies plummeting to the empty road like hail. Sirius barely stopped to watch the aftermath; he turned back to the bike, undid his charm and they shot down the highway. James watched the car smash back down to the earth, the front rumpling like paper and two of the windows shattering upon impact. He couldn’t make out whether the car had landed on any of the Death Eaters.

“Sirius, those muggles could be hurt, I think we should turn around.” By the time the words were out of his mouth, they could no longer make out the car. Just some smoke hovering over leafless trees, then nothing as Soldiers Field Road coiled away from the scene of the accident.

“We can’t. There’s nothing we can do.” James paused at Sirius’ tone. He was scared, of course, they were both frightened out of their minds and shaking from adrenaline, but Padfoot should never be too scared to know what’s right. And going back for those muggles was right.

“Of course there is,” James said, hoping he sounded gentle, but hearing himself sounding stern. “We can’t leave those muggles like that, and with Death Eaters, no less!”

“Those Death Eaters are fucking dead, James!” Sirius yelled, his hands white from gripping the handles. “If we go back, we’ll just be joining those muggles. We’re almost back.”

That, at least, was a relief. Dumbledore would know what do. James almost spoke his relief aloud, but thought better of it at the last minute. For all he knew, Sirius would want to keep this to themselves, to pretend it hadn't happen. When they approached the front gate, James was getting ready to send a spell at the teachers’ windows to get someone’s attention when McGonagall stepped in front of the bike. It stopped without Sirius turning it off and the two of them tumbled off, almost getting trapped beneath it.

“Where have you two _been_?!” Sirius winced at the dull thud his bike made as it hit the concrete. James winced at Sirius’ priorities.

James explained as Sirius stood beside him, sullen and silent. Almost as soon as he started, McGonagall interrupted him and began instructing other professors to assess the damage done on Soldiers Field. They bustled off past the gate and Apparated away with in a sharp series of pops.

Neither of the muggles in the car died or were permanently injured and Dumbledore told them afterward no one had seen any traces of the Death Eaters. Soon after they all began to hear rumors about muggle police shooting wizards and a pureblood Sixth Year named McGee used up his fifteen minutes of fame talking about his uncle who had been the victim of muggle police brutality.

At the time, Sirius will try not to think about whether or not he killed Patrick McGee’s uncle and he will absolutely not dwell on whether he regrets it even if he had. He will wile his way into the apartment on Cambridge Street and will spend most of his remaining weekends as a Hogwarts student at the apartment. McGonagall will try to talk to him, but he will avoid her.

James will tell Remus and Peter that Sirius just needs time, but he will confide in Lily that he’s worried about Sirius’ recklessness. “This time it turned out okay, I guess, but what about next time?” Lily will roll her eyes when he’s not looking, because she has been trying to tell him this for almost two years. Sirius will refuse to discuss it with James during their ride down to Providence to drop off the bike at his house.

That Christmas break, Sirius decided he to celebrate the New Year at his new apartment and abruptly told the Potters and his friends that he was going to head back to Boston early. James’ first instinct was to tell Sirius that he would go with him, but the offer fell flat to everyone’s ears. Remus offered to go instead.

Riding Sirius’ motorcycle together made them think of their trips to the Combat Zone, of dancing and the still unfamiliar smell of sex, but they avoided any touchy subjects: Playland, feelings, death, war. Instead Remus ranted to Sirius about music, chastising him for refusing to listen to any of the records Remus had lent him on the record player he’d bought to entice Remus to come over more often. He speculated loudly that Sirius would _definitely_ dig Led Zeppelin, even if they took six minutes to get at what the Ramones could say in a minute and a half.

“I mean, one song is just them saying d’ya wanna dance over and over again at different speeds for two minutes. It’s genius, but I’m not sure you’re _elevated_ enough for that.” Sirius could practically feel Remus’ smirk behind him.

“You’ve got four days to elevate me, Moony,” he replied, not sure he’d be heard over the sound of the other cars.

Remus heard. “Shit, I’ll need longer’n that.” And he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghost ♪ The Acid  
> Get Down On It ♪ Kool & the Gang  
> Oh My Darling Don't Cry ♪ Run the Jewels  
> Puppy Dog ♪ The Shivers  
> Mind Your Own Business ♪ Delta 5


End file.
